


from an impossible height

by jdphoenix



Series: drabble collections [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-05-04 10:13:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 23,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5330345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will/Jemma drabbles too short to warrant individual postings.</p><p>Updated 7/14 with chapters 17-30</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. just one thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A hopeful reaction written immediately after 3x05 aired.

There’s dust in his mouth, clogging his throat so he can’t scream anymore. Doesn’t matter, he can see the shadow in the wind. It’s holding something - always holding something. He’s never gotten a good look at it because, well, he doesn’t stick around long to find out. He’s not  _that_  much of an idiot.

That’s not saying much though. He’s out here now, isn’t he? Smack dab in the middle of the no fly zone.

The dust kicks up worse and he feels whatever it’s holding smack against the side of his leg. It sends him to his knees and he grabs the thing - feels like a rope or a whip or one of those tentacles all dried up - tugs  _hard_. He came out here to end things, not to play games.

He tries for another yell, but all that comes out is a cough. And then another one when it drags him closer, pulling him along the jagged rocks and sand. He’s going so fast he’s practically flying. He thought it was closer, but maybe the thing only backed off to toy with him. And wouldn’t that be just like it?

He can’t blame it though. He’s the only thing left alive out here. It’s gotta make his death count.

He grips tighter, throws another hand around the weapon. He’s going down, but he’s not about to make it too easy.

All at once he hits cold. It’s icy -  _freezing_  really - for a split second and then he’s in open air. No dust, no sand. There are voices all around and he stumbles, hits his feet and clings to the rope to keep them.

Blonde. There’s a blonde staring at him. She and a big black guy are holding the wheels holding the rope he’s half-hanging from.

There are other people, all staring at him like he’s a fucking ghost and he’s probably looking at them the same. Except his vision’s going kind of tunnel-y, so he’s having trouble keeping his focus on any of them.

“Will?”

He spins around so fast he hears the wheels turn and his knees buckle a little as the rope slackens. “ _Jemma_.”

She’s alive. She really did make it. 

He lets go to walk to her but he can’t quite keep his feet under him and she has to catch him halfway. He clings to her, so tight it must be hurting her but she’s laughing. She’s laughing and it’s the best sound in the whole damn world and the  _world..._

He tips his head back, takes a deep breath of good, clean Earth air and it smells like Jemma and flowers and that thing he spent his whole life thinking was nothing but that’s really the smell of this beautiful planet. 

“You brought me back.”

Her hands are in his hair and on his face. The lights overhead are too bright but her smile’s brighter and he can’t look away.

“I said I would.” 

She tries to wrap herself around him and they both tumble to the concrete floor. God,  _concrete_. He missed it.

He doesn’t let her go.

“I know you probably already did it,” he says over her laughter, “but since I still have to, I have a counter proposal. Instead of sleeping while we shower and eat, I’m thinking we have sex while we shower and eat.” He somehow - and  _he’s_  not even really sure how he does this - manages to both crawl up so he’s on eye-level with her and not let her go at all. “And then we fall asleep after. Probably in the shower. But we’ll manage.”

She drags her nails along his scalp and it’s really all he can do not to purr. He’s missed her. More than he’s missed anything else, he thinks, he’s missed  _her_. 

He hasn’t forgotten about everyone else here. He knows they’re being watched, probably by her SHIELD people, possibly even by Fitz, but he can’t find it in him to care.

“How are you not exhausted?” she asks. “I was exhausted right away from the gravitational and atmospheric discrepancies.”

He laughs - never thought he’d hear that kind of talk again - and it hurts his lungs, but he buries his coughing in her neck. He’s got an answer, but she’s right, he’s too tired to give it. He holds onto it though, like he holds onto her. No gravity or atmosphere or planet or anything at all matters so much as her in his arms.

Though he is really looking forward to that shower, cheeseburger, sex combo.

 


	2. with no space between us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma and Will being adorable on the planet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "things you said with no space between us."

Her cot is  _right there_. If she just rolls to the left, she’ll land on it. But the only reason to do that is for her pillow, and Will’s chest is, she thinks, much more ergonomically correct. Besides, he doesn’t seem particularly inclined to let her go. 

As if he’s read her thoughts, his arms tighten briefly around her back before moving to her hips. “Hey.”

She moans, refusing to be moved. If he really has read her mind, he should know it’s been established that his chest is the most comfortable bed on this planet, and if he hasn’t, she’ll tell him later, when she’s not busy feigning sleep.

“Hey,” he pushes her a little more insistently. “I gotta tell you something and you gotta be awake for it.”

She hums. “I’ll be awake in eight hours. Tell me then.”

“Nope. Gotta be now. I’ll lose my nerve otherwise.”

Well that’s ominous. She folds her arms over his chest and props her chin up on them. 

He stares at her for long seconds. He does that a lot and she used to think it was just him reminding himself she was real, but there’s an added heat to the look in the weeks since their relationship changed. If she could study the before and the after side-by-side, would there really be a difference or is it only her perception of him that’s allowed her to see what was always there?

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this story I read back in high school,” he says finally. “Ray Bradbury. I think it was on Mars? Anyway, there’s this guy - a farmer or a miner or something.”

“On Mars?” she asks, just to see him smile. She’s not disappointed.

“Yeah, on Mars. Anyway, he heads into town one day and there’s no one. Nobody at all anywhere. And he wanders for a while until he hears a phone ringing. I think he misses it the first time? But he catches it somewhere else. Turns out there’s this woman, last woman in the whole world, and she’s calling every number in the book trying to find someone else.”

“Does he think she’s a hallucination?”

He pinches her rear. “No. But he does-” He cuts off, seems to think better of what he was about to say. “Have you ever met someone and they just rub you all wrong? You know they’ve gotta have friends and people who care about them and love them in spite of their  _everything_ , but you can’t stand even a few seconds with them?”

Daniel Whitehall springs to mind. She nods.

“That’s what this woman was like for this guy. He knew right away that he’d never be able to be in the same room as her for more than five minutes without wanting to blow his brains out. And the story ends with him hanging up and running away because he knows she’s coming, and he spends the rest of his life trying to avoid her on this barren planet.”

She’s beginning to regret staying on top of him. She wants very much to shift in place, to shake off the itchy embarrassed feeling in her skin, but he’ll feel that. Maybe he really _can_ read her mind because he reaches up to brush some of her hair away from her face.

“My point is, I know we’re the only two people on this planet, but that’s not why we're  _here_. At least not for me. I just wanted you to know.” 

It’s a heavy statement and one she gives the proper time to settle in her head. There’s no reason for him to have said it. They are, as he said, the only two people on this world. They’re effectively stuck with each other, no matter his story, but she does appreciate hearing him admit it’s more than that.

“I would kiss you,” she says, “but you did wake me up for this and if I move I’ll have to get resettled.”

“Okay,” he says quickly, though she imagines he’d readily agree to anything she said at this moment. 

She kisses his chest to make up for it and lays her ear over his heart. He’s got an astronaut’s heartbeat, almost unwaveringly steady, but she thinks it might pick up a little as she cuddles deeper into his embrace.

“For the record,” she says, her eyes already firmly closed, “I wouldn’t be with you either, if I didn’t want to be.”

His arms wrap around her again and his hand finds her hair. She can’t tell if it truly takes him as long as she thinks to hum an agreement or if it’s her sleepy mind playing tricks on her.

 


	3. who did this to you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma has bad dreams. (Pre-bottle breaking.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "who did this to you?"

“Do you wanna talk about him?” Will asks the tenth time it happens - and those are just the ones he’s noticed. He’s sure she’s done it other times behind his back or when he was distracted.

She frowns at him around the rover’s frame. “Uh, I don’t think you want to hear me talk about Fitz. I do that enough as it is.”

He tries to lean casually against the table - but he hasn’t had much cause for playing casual for a while, so it probably comes off all wrong. “No. The other guy. The one who hurt you.”

She freezes, that ever-present smile of hers fading a little and he hates this guy even more for that. “What do you mean?” she asks, looking like a rabbit about to run for cover.

“You have a lot of nightmares, I hear you sometimes-”

“I’m sorry.”

He waves away her automatic apology. He likes it, hearing her in the next room after he‘s been chased from his own dreams, but telling her so would probably sound creepy. “There’s this one you have, always ends with you gasping awake, and afterward you’re skittish. You won’t come within arm’s reach of me and if you  _do_  and we happen to touch? You jump away like I’ve burned you. So if you wanna talk about the bastard who did that to you, I’d be glad to tell you how I’d tear him apart. You know, if he weren’t in another solar system.”

She stares at him, her eyes warm and her face doing this scrunchy thing he thinks might be leading up to a good cry. And then she goes and surprises him - he’s gotta learn to expect that from her - with a laugh. 

She wipes at her eye. “Wow, that is-” Another laugh cuts her off. 

She shifts in her seat so she’s not looking around the rover to see him. “That’s probably the only nightmare I have that doesn’t involve another person doing me harm.”

Well  _that’s_  disturbing, but it’s a subject for another time. “So you’re not…”

“Cringing away from you because I’m remembering an abusive ex? No. You remember how I told you about the Battle of New York?”

He scoffs.  _Yeah_. He remembers. Alien invasion of downtown Manhattan. He may be living in outer space, but that’s not the sort of thing he’s gonna forget hearing about.

“Right. Well. About a year later my team was called in to investigate a mysterious death. There had been a freak electrical storm in the area and the body was left floating in midair.”

She lets that sink in for a minute, which is good because he definitely needs it. He’d thought, what with living out here, that he’d have the weirder stories between them, but Jemma is not to be beat.

“Okay,” he says, gesturing for her to continue. It’s part of their system. She only tells him one big thing a day and she never keeps going after something shocking unless he says he’s ready.

“There was another death shortly thereafter, and just as the third was about to take place, I realized it wasn’t someone with powers-”

They’ve covered superpowers. He is accepting it and moving on  _very_  quickly.

“-it was a disease. Alien. The men who died were all firefighters who’d taken a souvenir from their clean-up of New York. A helmet from one of the invaders. The disease it carried was a mere annoyance to the alien, but to a human it was a completely unknown brand of virus. It was passed on via electrical impulse and had reached the men through static electricity while they cleaned the helmet. When it- when it ran its course, there was a massive build up of electricity, which would then erupt from the body in a wave, killing the infected and causing electrical damage to anything nearby.”

“Wow.” His sand demon is looking a lot less horrible by comparison. 

“Yes.” Her hands are tight in her lap, twisting and pulling in short motions like that’ll keep him from noticing.

“You were infected, weren’t you?”

She nods, her eyes on the ground instead of him. “We were halfway across the Atlantic before we realized and with the disease’s timeline … I didn’t have long enough to make land.”

His chest goes tight. She’s here now, so she had to have made it, but he knows what the orders would’ve been in a situation like that. 

“I found a cure, of course,” she says with a forced smile. “But I’d been infected while examining the first body. The thought that at any time in the interim I could have infected one of the others simply by  _touching_  them…”

“I’m sorry.” It doesn’t mean much, but it’s the best he can offer her.

She smiles at her hands. “So that’s why I don’t like to be near people after that particular nightmare. I know it’s silly, I  _know_  I’m no longer infected, but there’s no convincing my subconscious of that.” She finally looks at him again, and he feels some of the tension between his ribs loosen. “I  _am_  sorry if I hurt you though. I didn’t mean to.”

He pushes off from the table and waves her off a second time. “Nah, don’t worry. At first I thought maybe you’d gotten sick of my stink, but then I remembered you haven’t seen real soap in months.”

“I rather think fourteen years’ worth of missed showers is worse.” She swings her legs around as she goes back to work on the rover. “But thank you,” she says before he can make the door, “for caring enough to worry over me.”

Every damn time he thinks he’s learned to live with that razor sharp feeling in his chest, she goes and does something that proves him wrong. 

He turns so he can fix her with a mocking smile as he backs through the door. “Hey, who else am I gonna worry over?”

“Certainly not yourself,” she says fondly. 

His smile fades as the partition falls between them. She does know how to twist the knife, doesn’t she?

But she’s alive and she’s not afraid of him. That’s gotta be enough. It’s all he has.

 


	4. moving out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick little ficlet for the "give me a sentence and I'll give you the next five (or more)" prompt on tumblr.

“I’m moving out tomorrow morning.”

“Wait.” Will knows he’s not as smart as Jemma, but the simple statement is somehow enough to give him pause. He looks around the cave and back to her. “Moving out  _where_?” It’s not like she can go stay with friends, unless she’s counting the tentacle monster she’s named Ward. (It hasn’t stopped her eating it though, so probably they’re not that close.)

“Out,” she says with a shrug. She says it like it’s  _obvious_  and he’s just starting to wonder which of them has been infected by the evil when her anger is replaced by a Cheshire grin and she slips her arms around his neck. She’s leaning against him in a  _very_  promising way. “But of course, the next sunrise isn’t for another seventeen years, so there’s every chance I’ll forget before morning.”

She kisses him, deep and slow, and he’s already moving them to the cots for what’s sure to be some very fun make-up sex.

 


	5. sleeping arrangements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will's back home and he's gotta get used to a few things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for my 25 days of fic challenge.

“Okay, I’m gonna say this as someone who has spent a good portion of his life in a place than can be pretty accurately described as hell,” Will says, which is the longest sentence he’s uttered so far and thus very promising despite its actual content. “What. The hell.”

“Shut up and eat,” Jemma says sternly. Or, as sternly as she’s able. She knows that the rest of the team is busy trying to track down HYDRA and the Inhuman that’s been released onto the Earth once more, and she’s keenly aware that Fitz is throwing himself into that work rather than be anywhere near her or Will (or, more precisely, her _and_ Will), but she can’t quite manage to stop smiling.

“There was a _plan_ ,” Will says plaintively. If he thinks she misses how he nudges the tray away from him, he is sorely mistaken. “We talked about this. Big Frank’s, just outside Houston. Best burgers in the _state_. No. Wait. In the galaxy. I can say that now, right? So best burgers in the galaxy. Gooey and dripping with grease and sauce, and little pieces of lettuce and onion and tomato seeds dribbling out over your fingers every time you take a bite.”

Jemma has to admit, he paints quite the picture, but she can’t oblige him. And not just because of the state of distress SHIELD is currently in.

“You haven’t had anything fried in over a decade. You haven’t had _meat_ in over a decade.” She nudges the tray closer to him than it was before and he pulls a childish face. “You have to ease into these things or you’ll regret it later.”

He huffs petulantly and picks up the fork. She doesn’t much blame him for his annoyance. The diet they’ve got him on is almost painfully plain, even worse than what she was eating when she came back. The only colors on his plate are the slightly off-yellow of his applesauce and the bright red of his jell-o.

“You know,” he says around a mouthful of rice, “I see now why you didn’t become a doctor. You’ve got a terrible bedside manner.”

She leans back in her chair to give his leg a light kick. He laughs and the sound is so good to hear she almost forgets to be angry with him.

“I’ll have you know my team has spoken very highly of my bedside manner.” Though, now that she thinks about it, the only people she can ever remember commenting positively were Coulson, who’s always been a little too nice to the core team; Trip, who was undeniably flirting with her at the time; and Ward. Not a very promising sampling.

Deciding to leave that subject alone for the moment, she uses her new posture to cross her ankles on the medical bed. Her shoes are off and she curls one of her feet over the warmth of his leg. He smiles at her and twists his calf into her arch.

“I just want you to be okay,” she says, her eyes on their legs. “I missed you.”

He laughs again, this time just a faint puff of humorless air that brings tears to her eyes. It was bad enough being _here_ , surrounded by other people and missing him; she can’t imagine what it was like for him.

“If it makes you feel any better,” she says, shoving down her tears before they can fall, “I didn’t succeed in my eat-shower-sleep plan, either.”

“Little bit, yeah,” he says, and she feels a little better for the smile she can hear in his tone.

For all his complaining, he eats every bit of the food his doctors prescribed. When he’s done, she stands to clean off the little tray table so he can fold it away, but finds herself half-falling against him instead.

She arches her back so she can look him in the eye without craning her neck. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he says, his arm still tight around her waist. It doesn’t look like he’s planning on letting her up anytime soon. At least he hasn’t been weakened by his return.

“You need to rest.” Those were the instructions from his doctors. Food and then sleep. _Lots_ of sleep.

His eyes dart to the windows. It’s the same look he had on his face when Fitz ducked out immediately after his return. His arm loosens.

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “Sorry. You go. I’ll be fine.”

He doesn’t _look_ like he’ll be fine. Part of her wishes he would just say what they both know he’s thinking so that she can say … something. She’s not sure what yet. But as she can’t find an excuse to say whatever that something is without prompting, she can’t much blame him.

She swings the tray table around so it’s hanging off the open side of the bed, out of the way, and then climbs into the narrow space beside him. He shoves over quickly - possibly too quickly for a man in his condition - and she curls into his side, her head resting against his chest.

“I had a hard time sleeping alone too,” she says.

He’s so still beneath her she might think something was wrong, if not for the frantic beat of his heart under her ear. “You did?”

She hums, already half-asleep. She forgot how comfortable he was, and how warm. “It’s odd to say,” she says, letting her eyes drift shut, “but I haven’t slept well since the planet.”

“Oh,” he says heavily, and she realizes that maybe she did manage to get it said all on her own.

He kisses the top of her head, laces his hands over her hip, and they both fall asleep. For the first time in a long time, she sleeps through the night.

 


	6. under the stars and in the grass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: things you said under the stars and in the grass

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Will says.

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?” he asks, all innocence.

“Looking at me when you’re meant to be looking at the stars and the trees and the field.” She runs her hand along the blades of grass between them and the way they spring back up behind her touch is the most fascinating thing he’s seen in a long time.

“There are no trees here.” He tears up one of the pink weeds girls used to chain into crowns during phys ed when he was in elementary school. He wonders how Jemma’d look in one. “No fields either.”

“Oh good, you’ve noticed.” She rolls onto her side, props herself on her elbow. “Does that mean you’re ready to stop pretending?”

“Jemma-”

“I’m not really here, Will.” She sounds genuinely sorry. Since she’s a figment of his imagination, he figures it makes sense he’d be sorry about his situation.

“I know.”

“You have to stop.”

Doesn’t she understand (and she has to, since she’s a part of him)? This is _all he has_. “I can’t.”

“You have to.” In the blink of an eye she’s sitting cross-legged over him. Her hands cup his face. “You have to fight it and come back to me.” Her nails trail through his hair.

“You’re safe. You’re home with Fitz. I don’t matter.”

“You _do_. You matter to me. Do you think I’ll just leave you here? And what will happen when I come back? Have you thought about that at all?”

He tries not to but he’s already inside his own head, there’s no way to keep from imagining what that’ll look like. Jemma finding a him who isn’t really him, but that _thing_ wearing his skin. The possibilities for how that'll go down are numerous and each worse than the last.

Her face blocks out the images. Her forehead presses against his and her breath falls warm over his face, chasing away the chill of the field. “I know it’s hard, but I need you to wake up. I need you to fight for me. _Please_ , Will.”

She’s no more real than anything else here, but he’s never been able to refuse Jemma anything and he won’t start now.

He kisses her. He might die - he’ll _probably_ die - fighting off its control and if this is his last chance at a kiss with Jemma, he’s gonna take it. It’s only as good as he remembers, but as that’s all he can get here, it’s gonna have to be enough.

“Goodbye,” he says when he pulls back, his eyes still firmly shut.

“See you soon,” she promises. It’s nice of him to lie to himself.

The chill goes out of the air. It’s not warm. It’s not _anything_. He opens his eyes and there’s no more field, no more trees, but still plenty of stars. He can see Orion’s belt hanging over the too familiar landscape of his valley and the purely Earthen constellation fortifies him a little. This is _his_ mind, not anyone else’s.

There’s a monster in the shadow of the mountains, waiting to meet him. Will sets his shoulders, ready for the fight.

 


	7. ficlets - one word prompts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For each of these I was given a single word prompt and five to ten (or sometimes more because I'm a cheat) minutes to write a drabble.
> 
> Warning: the last one is a little nsfw.

**carry**

She remembers as soon as she wakes up. She nearly knees Ward in the face and falls to her death in the Atlantic Ocean - still far too far beneath them to hit without dying instantly. Lucky for her, he’s got a sure grip on her. She pretends his touch doesn’t make her skin crawl and clings to his shoulders for fear he’ll see something in her face and elect to drop her over risking exposure.

Her plan to save Will was … messy. It involved a little bit of time travel and a _lot_ of luck. She _hates_ relying on luck - science is about _facts_ , after all - but in this case, with the monolith destroyed and no feasible path to the planet presenting itself, she was willing to take the chance. At the very least, if all else fails, she’s gone back far enough that she’ll be able to reach the _Iliad_ and rescue him.

That hope keeps her warm through Ward’s feigned worry over her well-being and the subsequent hours spent bobbing in chilly waters. When the rescue boat comes for them, the both of them are too tired to keep their feet and have to be carried to medical. Ward gets a gurney, she gets the arms of a very forward but welcome agent. 

She must fall asleep along the way because she comes to to the sound of someone being berated. Right. She was infected with an alien disease. Casual contact is bad - _sustained and unnecessary_ contact is worse. The warm hand of her escort is still on her back though, helping her sit upright. Actually, it’s moving along her spine in soothing strokes. He _is_ forward, isn’t he?

She twists her head up to give him a piece of her mind. At the same moment her eyes settle on his face, she realizes there was no impertinent agent the first time she lived this wretched day. The cause for the change becomes immediately apparent.

“I’ve spent ten years trying to come up with a great opening line,” Will says. “I’m sure you could’ve figured it out in the first month, but-”

She throws her arms around his neck and kisses him the way she’s wanted to every second since returning to Earth. There are a lot of confused agents - Ward included and won’t _that_ be a pleasure to deal with - staring, she knows, but her reckless plan _worked_ and Will is safe and on Earth and she truly can’t care about anything else at all.

 

 

**mask**

Will meets Jemma’s eyes. They’re so calm, impossibly calm for having a gun aimed between them. The pulse isn’t though. He can see it jumping at her throat. The sight of it, even in the worst possible circumstances, reignites that small hope in his chest. She’s never gonna stop doing that, is she?

He lowers the gun and that mouth curves into a grin that isn’t her at all. He doesn’t know how the thing managed to fool her friends in SHIELD for all these months.

“Poor Will,” it says, forcing Jemma’s face into a pout. Her fingers trail along his arms but it doesn’t bother with the gun. “You did the impossible, crossed the universe just to avenge the woman you love, and even standing two feet from her killer, you can’t do it.”

Her hands move over his shoulders. His eyes drift shut as memory overwhelms him. Jemma used to play with the hairs at the back of his neck like this, tease him into letting her cut it. She loved doing that for him. 

“I didn’t.”

“Hm?” Her head tips to one side, her eyes somehow blank and curious all at once. 

Will slides his free hand over her hip, pulling her closer to wrap his gun arm around her shoulders. It smiles, disgustingly pleased.

“I didn’t cross the universe to avenge her,” he says. “I did it to _save_ her.” 

It’s awkward, keeping his hold with his gun hand while pulling away far enough to fire the ICER from her waistband into her chest - twice, just for safety’s sake - but he manages. It collapses and he cradles Jemma’s body to him. 

He lowers them both to the floor, sets the pistols aside. She looks so much like Jemma now, with none of its cruelty in her expression. His hands shake while he adjusts her head to a more comfortable position. 

“I’ll get you back,” he promises, hoping both that she can and can’t hear him; if she's aware at all of what's happened to her, he wants her to know it's gonna be okay, but he'd rather she be trapped in some corner of her own mind, dreaming of better days. “You found a way home; now I’m gonna find a way to bring you back to it.”

 

 

**skin**

Will might have developed an addiction since returning to Earth. It’s not all that surprising, really. He’s been deprived in so many ways for so long, every second of his life now is like he’s a kid at Disneyland. 

This particular addiction isn’t to drugs or alcohol, not food or netflix - though he _loves_ netflix, it makes acclimating so much easier. It’s to Jemma’s skin.

He always loved it. He’d forgotten, after so long, how tantalizing a few snatches of bare skin could be. The fraying hems of a pair of jeans, the collar of a shirt - it can be incredibly erotic under the right circumstances.

 _Not_ that he ever let his thoughts get that far those first few months. (His subconscious might have, but he can’t be blamed for that, can he?)

And then, when he was _allowed_ to have those thoughts, to touch her and be touched, it was incredible. He knows he drove her crazy, spending hours just marveling over the feel of her arms, her legs, her face, her stomach.

But now, here on Earth, there are _products_. Things like soap and body lotion. He thought Jemma’s skin was amazing before, but now? Now he touches her every chance he gets. His hand on hers. An arm slung around her shoulders. Their ankles tangled under the table. Whatever’s available, he’ll take it.

It’s gotten so bad even Daisy, the one friend of Jemma’s who never treated him like he’s usurped someone else’s place, has taken to gagging when he starts up. But he can’t help it! Not touching Jemma would be like not loving her; it’s just not possible.

 

 

**water**

“Sorry,” she hears and a second later cold air is rolling over the edge of the shower stall.

“I heard you,” she says calmly. It’s impossible not to. After so long with almost no sound at all, everything on Earth is distractingly loud and Will’s footsteps were easily identifiable while he shuffled down the hall. “Close the door.”

He hesitates only a moment before - correctly - interpreting her instruction to mean with him on this side of it.

“Join me?” she asks, dipping her head back beneath the shower head. “The water’s warm.”

In fact, it heats up considerably as Will drags his eyes over her curves. He nods and takes half a step towards her before remembering he needs to undress. She giggles while he tears at Hunter’s borrowed clothes and cuts off with a gasp when the door opens, letting in a burst of cold. Will is quick to make up for it, wrapping himself around her beneath the spray.

He’s distracted by the simple pleasure of water running freely over his chest, his face, his shoulders. She draws his attention back to her through her own distraction; she runs her hands over his skin, marveling at the sight of years’ worth of grime falling away. His eyes focus on her like he’s coming out of a dream and all at once he gathers her to him, drawing another laugh out of her.

“This is nice,” he says into the curve of her neck.

She presses up against him out of habit but wills her heart rate to slow. “There’s a rule,” she gasps out, trying to focus while his lips are suckling at that spot beneath her ear and her traitorous hands are exploring his back, “about shower activities. Bobbi and Hunter broke a shower head and-”

“I’m new,” Will says and his voice has taken on that rolling quality that always makes her knees week and her center ache, “and you’ve been gone. You probably forgot.”

“Yes,” she agrees, arching into him again. “I have most definitely forgotten.” And, for a few minutes, she genuinely does.

 


	8. first sentence prompts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For these, I was prompted with a first sentence and continued from there.

“Can we vote on this?”

“Vote on what?” Jemma asks while she braces her feet on the floor. She’s supporting quite a lot of weight here.

“On-” Hunter gestures disdainfully towards the center of the lab, which, at the moment, means he’s gesturing towards her- “ _this_. All of this. Because I do not approve.”

“Huh?” Will asks, looking to Jemma for guidance even as he tries to stand on his own. She keeps her hands laced around his back to stop him from getting far. He’s in no shape for this after travelling several million light years in the blink of an eye.

“I don’t see that it’s any of your business, and we _do_ have other things to deal with at the moment.” Such as Will’s no doubt desperate need for medical care. He’s already flagging and the arm he has wrapped around her shoulders is more for support than comfort.

“I’m just saying,” Hunter goes on, “I think everyone here would agree with me that this is not something we can support.”

“Um,” Daisy says regretfully, “I’m not so sure that’s true.” She shoots Jemma a tight smile before looking to Fitz. “I’m sorry but if Simmons wants to date the new guy, that’s her decision. Besides, he’s an astronaut. And he’s _hot_.”

“Girl’s got a point,” Mack mutters under Hunter’s scandalized gasp. “Sorry, Turbo.”

“Traitors! You’re all traitors!” Hunter bellows.

Jemma can feel Will’s knees are about to give out. She really has to get him out of here before he collapses entirely. “Hunter,” she says sharply, “shut up. Fitz? I’m fairly certain we’ve beaten this issue to death between us.”

He gives her a sad sort of half-shrug, half-nod, but it’s an agreement and that’s all she needs.

“Oh, come o-” Hunter tries to protest.

“Will!” Jemma yells over him. Will perks up. More or less. She’s still more carrying him than anything and his eyes are mostly shut, understandable under these bright lights. She’ll get him somewhere darker soon. “We’re going to have sex.”

Hunter gapes. Bobbi mutters something that might be “get it” but Jemma can’t be sure at this distance.

Will’s eyebrows rise and his eyes open far enough she can make out some of the color. “Um, are you sure? Because Fitz-”

“I’m absolutely sure.” She walks him towards the door. Her bunk is too far, they’ll just have to use the quarantine pod that no one is bothering to help her get Will to.

“I don’t know if I’m up for that.” He sounds terribly apologetic. Also slightly drunk. Poor thing, he’s had a hell of a day.

“Don’t worry. I’ll do all the work. You just relax.”

Hunter is still sounding horrified when they depart the room and it takes Will half a dozen more steps to sigh and say, “You’re the best.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Well if you don’t fuck him, I will.”

“ _Skye!_ ”

Daisy lets the name slip past; Simmons is still doing better than Coulson was at this point. “I’m _just saying_ your astronaut has been moping around here for two weeks, staring at you like a kicked puppy and waiting to find out if you’re gonna pick up where you left off. Which, if you don’t want to, fine, but dude is  _ripped_. I’m more than happy to take that bullet.”

Simmons stares at her for long seconds. 

“What?”

“Obviously I can never leave you alone again. A few months without me and you’ve regressed completely.”

Daisy scoffs. “The guy’s a bonafide American hero. A modern Captain America. It’s unpatriotic that he’s been back on his native soil this long without sex.”

“You do realize that appealing to my sense of _American_ patriotism is never going to work, right?”

“So I can have sex with him?” Daisy asks. “Because he looks like the kind of guy who needs to get to know a girl first and if I’m gonna go on a date tonight I need to shower.”

“Wait,” Simmons says, something like horror flashing in her eyes. About damn time. “You’re really serious?”

“Yep.” Daisy nods.

Simmons actually pales. She is _so_ obvious. 

“I mean,” Daisy says slowly, “I’m not invested in him or anything. I just figure some meaningless sex might be fun - and he’s the only guy here who isn’t afraid of Coulson, so…” 

Simmons is looking off towards Will, worrying her lower lip like she’s still debating this thing. Ugh. Fine. She’s already told so many lies this conversation, what’s one more?

“And I heard Agent Conlee’s thinking of asking him out so I thought I should get in there while I could.”

Simmons is on her feet before Daisy’s even done talking. She slows down once Will catches sight of her coming. It’s kind of adorable how she doesn’t even _say_ anything, just holds out her hand - which he (duh) takes - and pulls him after her to what Daisy hopes is her quarters, but after how long they’ve been apart no one would blame them if they detoured into a storage closet for some necking on the way.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You have done this before, right?” Will asks.

Jemma’s hold on him slackens and she bends into his direct line of sight to ask, “If I hadn’t, would it really matter? Or were you thinking of asking It to pop your shoulder back into place?”

“After It went to all that trouble to dislocate it? That’d just be rude.”

She’s getting to him. That sounds more like something she’d say and it shows in the smile she gives him.

“Precisely. Now hold still.”

“You never answered m-” The end of the question comes out as a wheeze when his shoulder pops back into the joint. “Oh, fucking hell.”

“Language,” she chides while strapping his arm to his chest with a spare belt. 

Once it’s secure, she eases him down onto his uninjured side on the cot. He’s still seeing stars and tries to blink them away; it doesn’t help. What _does_ help is her fingers carding gently through his hair and the soft brush of her voice herding him towards sleep.

“I did, for the record,” she says after a few minutes, after enough of the pain has passed that he can make sense of actual words. “Once, after a colleague was shot in the shoulder, and then again last year. That time was actually for an enemy agent, but as I was undercover, it seemed appropriate.”

“You lead a weird life, Jemma Simmons,” he says. He’s said it a lot since meeting her and he can picture her answering smile.

“Go to sleep.”

He tries to tell her she’s not the boss of him, but his mouth won’t move to make the words. She talks to him, fills the quiet with soft words - half of which he doesn’t understand. Coupled with her fingers in his hair and the weight of her eyes on him, it’s nice, makes him feel like he’s home for the first time in fourteen years and that takes the edge off his pain better than any drugs could. 

(When he wakes up, she’s still talking but now it’s that steady stream she keeps up like Fitz is right there with her, a third person in their cave. 

Will watches her dance through the space they’ve come to call the lab. She’s back to work finding her way home and his way … to someplace that isn’t here; he’s not sure he’ll be able to call it home though.)

 


	9. one sentence fics

**Angst**

After fourteen years in hell, a beautiful woman _literally_  drops into his lap - and she’s in love with someone else; sounds like Will’s kinda luck.

 

**AU**

When he finally tracks down the shadow haunting their campsite, she turns out to be a five-foot-nothing woman, dressed in rags and talking to herself after years stranded here, who cries when he promises he’ll get her home.

 

**Crack**

He’s gotta hand it to Jemma; she may not have gotten them through the portal but she did manage to flag down an alien ship manned by, among other things, a talking raccoon and a monosyllabic tree.

 

**Future fic**

The last time these hands touched her, they tortured her, and the face belongs to a murderer, but somehow it’s Will staring out at her.

 

**First Time**

She cries the morning after.

 

**Fluff**

He spends three months looking over her shoulder while she does calculations and disappearing off into the tunnels when she’s not looking, all so he can surprise her with one of those old-timey models of the solar system.

 

**Humor**

They’ve been married two years and her friends _still_ call him her “space boyfriend.” 

 

**Hurt/Comfort**

He doesn’t mind she’s got new scars, doesn’t mind at all she got them trying to keep the portal shut, and does his utmost to make sure she knows it.

 

**Smut**

The thing about being the only two people in the world is you can do pretty much whatever you want _wherever_  you want.

 

**UST (Unresolved Sexual Tension)**

It’s not often she’s thankful for Grant Ward’s existence in her life, but he did help her build up a tolerance to shirtless, well-formed men that comes in _incredibly_  handy in the months she spends working out the portal calculations with Will so close that, if she had a mind to, she could reach out and- _no!_

 


	10. the color green

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anon requested "the color green" for Jemma/Will

It’s been years since the planet, but the habits developed there never really leave her. No matter that she was up until well after midnight working on her new antiviral or that the sun hasn’t risen nearly far enough to heat the air, Will’s hand on her shoulder still wakes her. It’s steady and firm, both a call to wakefulness and a caution to keep still.

“Don’t move,” he whispers at the same moment a scraping sounds from the direction of the door. 

Her heart beats wildly in her chest and her breath holds. Will slides his hand around her back, tugging her close to his chest, and some of her tension eases; if he was worried, he would face outwards so as better to face the threat - if it is a threat.

It’s not, as it turns out. The whine of the door’s hinges is followed by unsteady footfalls, which she easily and immediately identifies as Luke’s. She can just imagine his little feet slapping the floorboards as he makes his way across the bedroom and her heart slows, her muscles loosen. She tries to roll over to face him, but Will holds her tight. 

When she opens her eyes to scowl at him, she finds him lifted on one elbow and smiling over her shoulder at their son. There’s a scraping, sliding sound that must be something heavy being placed on her nightstand. Whatever it is, it was likely the cause of his slow, uneven steps because now, his burden delivered, he dashes out of the room with all his usual energy.

Jemma demands answers with only an archly raised eyebrow and Will laughs so hard he falls onto his back.

“You can’t guess?” he asks.

She frowns and rolls over to discover a vase overflowing with a mismatched mix of flowers. The water’s muddy from roots torn straight from the ground and most of the flowers look like they were half-strangled while being plucked, but it’s perhaps the loveliest thing Jemma’s seen since Luke’s painting of him, “grandpa” Phil, and Captain America.

“Did you put him up to this?” she asks, reaching up to finger the petals of a poppy. There’s a pot of the same species growing on the windowsill and the vase on the kitchen table that will surely need to be replaced today has at least one of the blue flowers.

“Nope,” Will says while pressing a kiss to her bare shoulder. It’s rough from his stubble and she squirms on principle more than she does due to real discomfort. He knows her too well and holds her steady, not the least bit apologetic. “He wanted to, asked me before bed if I’d put one of the vases down where he could get it.”

“He wants to be like his father.”

It began shortly after Will came back to her, when he brought her a bouquet and shyly confessed he’d always wished he could give her flowers. Very quickly it became a habit and, once they settled down together, he made certain to bring her something new and green every day. Secretly she suspects he might have specifically requested this assignment from Coulson when she started talking about leaving the Playground, as it provides him with a wealth of flora to choose from, but she’s never been able to prove it.

Of course, it’s equally possible that Coulson only realized her reason for wanting to leave at all was that the Playground, while full of friends she loves like family, is dark and dull and she simply could _not_ spend the rest of her life there when the world held so much _color_. She needs it now the same way she needs Earth itself. Will understands that in a way no one else ever will.

She squirms again, this time earnestly, and manages to push herself down at the same time she drags him up so she can kiss him properly. She means it to be a quick thanks for simply being him, but it deepens, their bodies too familiar with the rhythm of things to stop easily.

But it _is_ time to start the day and, when things would progress too far, they both end up laughing instead of getting anywhere.

She’s on top of him now, the morning air cold on her back and spurring her for the warm shower, but she likes where she is. She glances at the messy mix of flowers. They have a beautiful son and a beautiful life on a beautiful world. She can’t imagine anything more she could want.

“We did good,” she says softly.

“Yeah?” he asks, toying with her hands.

“Yes.” She bends forward to kiss him once, this time awake enough to control her baser lusts. “Very good.”

 


	11. (more) ficlets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: the first of these is borderline explicit.

“Sooner or later he’ll have to get bored. Won’t he?”

Will gives Jemma a level look. They’re safe in this cave - whether because the opening is too narrow for It to pass through or because It didn’t see where they disappeared to - but so long as that bloody storm is raging outside, they’re trapped.

“Well then,” she says heavily, “I suppose we’ll just have to find some way to pass the time.” She uses his shoulder for leverage to pull herself over his lap.

“Gonna be tough,” he says in an equally serious tone, even as his fingers are dancing past the waist of her jeans to the sensitive skin under her shirt, “not much in here to do.”

“No.” She crosses her arms behind his head and settles herself more snuggly over him. “Not much at all. Very inconvenient.” His broad hands flatted on her lower back, pulling her to him so he can press suckling kisses to her neck. “I shall-” her serious tone has gone woefully high-pitched and breathy and she fears there’s no getting it back under control now- “have to lodge a complaint with It later.” She might be able to say more, but she’s cut off by an involuntary yelp.

He’s slipped a hand into the seat of her pants to pinch her bum, the sneak. Well, she certainly can’t let him win the war, can she? Verbal teasing is set aside to make room for a purely physical assault. She wins. Handily.

 

 

\-----

 

 

“Will!” Jemma calls from deeper in the caves. “ _Willlllll!_ ” There’s a tenuous quality to the word the second time and it has him dropping his needle and thread and tearing towards the sound.

He finds her just past the third turn-off, bent over- well, bent over the _wall_. She’s holding one arm towards him, hand out to slow him down. Once he’s stopped, she gestures him closer, her eyes never leaving … whatever it is that’s got her attention.

He bends close next to her, wondering what has her so worked up, and he’s just about to ask when he sees a flutter in the shadows of the rocky wall. 

Wings. A bug no bigger than his pinkie nail is shaking dust off its wings and crawling over the rock.

Jemma looks enchanted. “Have you ever seen a bug here?” she asks, barely breathing so as not to disturb the thing.

“It’s on my list,” he says honestly and that gets her attention on him, her curiosity too much for the little bug. “Of good things about this place,” he explains. “No bugs. Brubaker thought there might not even be bacteria, since no one ever got infections - but we couldn’t exactly fire up the microscope to find out.”

She hums and goes back to staring lovingly at the bug.

He watches her - watches her watching it - for a minute or so before heading back to the cave. He doesn’t share her fascination with the discovery, but he can certainly appreciate how excited she is. (It’s nice to see her excited about something new after … well, _after_.)

He comes back a few minutes later with the jar he used to keep small screws in up until two minutes ago (no reason they can’t be in with the big ones) and quickly captures the bug inside. Jemma lets out a cry of indignation that disappears when he hands the jar over with a muted flourish. 

She turns it this way and that, examining the holes he already drilled in the top to be sure they’re not too big, and then smiles. “We’ll have to figure out what he eats.”

 _He_ , huh? “You’re gonna name it, aren’t you?”

Her smile only grows and she all-but dances past him to the cave. “I’ve always been fond of ‘Charles,’ what do you think?”

 

 

\-----

 

 

There are blushes and fleeting looks and dancing around each other in a way they haven’t since her first days here - in a way they _never_ did because now they each know things about the other they didn’t before and it changes _everything_. He thinks they’d drown in the sadness if they didn’t have this to occupy them; as it is, there’s barely room in the caves to think about home today. 

For him anyway. He thinks it’s the same for her - hopes it is. He doesn’t want to see her break again.

She’s not eating her food. He shoots her a glance across the table, worried she’s finally coming down from the sex high, and finds her staring at him curiously.

“What?” he asks.

“I just-” She cuts off, purses her lips in a way that always got him going but _now_ … well, things are different.

She sets her palms against the table and pushes back to stand. He sits back in his chair while she comes around and is _really_ glad he did a second later when his lap is full of Jemma. She pulls at the frayed V of his shirt.

“I always wanted to do this,” she says, and then she’s kissing along his collarbone, all lips and teeth and tongue and _fuck_.

When she pauses, he manages to ask, “Always?” - it’s barely more than a grunt.

She nods against his shoulder and tips her lips up to whisper straight in his ear. “I dreamed about it while I was in the cage.”

Oh, God. He had dreams while she was in the cage too and part of him, a really terrible part, wonders if hers were anything like his. 

She’s gone, her weight lifting out of his lap and leaving him cold and hard. Her fingers trail along the path she just kissed along his skin and over his shoulder, a clear invitation to follow her back to bed. A moan catches in his throat. 

She’s not the only one who can have fun with the new status quo.

He twists out of the chair, letting his moan emerge as a growl as he races up behind her, catching her up in his arms and carrying her to the cots while she laughs joyously. It’s the best damn sound he’s ever heard - on this planet or any other.

 

 


	12. jurassic park

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt “If I hadn’t seen Jurassic Park, I wouldn’t be nearly as frightened right now.”

“SHIELD is sending us a consultant on this one,” Coulson says.

Jemma doesn’t groan childishly the way Fitz does, but her expression is no less pleased. They’re supposed to be a mobile response team, what’s the point if SHIELD’s just going to supplement their team with some supposed expert who will take all the credit for the discovery himself?

“Sir,” Ward says, wearing that frown of his that says he hates to disagree with his CO but he’s going to do it anyway, “the last time we had an addition to the team, it … didn’t exactly go well.”

“Mike was between a rock and a hard place,” Coulson says, sobering suddenly. “Nothing that happened there was his fault.”

Ward plainly does not agree but he nods his acceptance that his objection has been shot down.

“And besides, I’m sure we won’t have any problems with this one.” Coulson is smiling in that knowing way of his, as though he expects them to be _excited_ by the prospect of some scientist they don’t even know forcing his way into _their_ research. 

Jemma tries not to look too annoyed with him.

The portal - a working, stable portal to an alien world - they’re investigating is, admittedly, a little beyond her or Fitz’s expertise. In fact, the agent on this plane with the most experience with this sort of thing is Coulson himself, so perhaps his decision to call in outside help wasn’t _entirely_ out of line, but it still grates.

“Oh!” she gasps and turns to Fitz. No one notices - which is to say everyone notices because everyone are spies, but the focus remains on Skye’s question of whether two consultants on the team isn’t weird - and Jemma drops her voice to a whisper. “What if he’s bringing in Dr. _Foster_?”

Fitz lights up, only to immediately deflate. “No, the Avengers aren’t allowed to know. And do you honestly think she’ll keep something like that from her _boyfriend_?”

Jemma sighs. He has a point. She supposes she can hope for Dr. Selvig. He’s worked for SHIELD before and might be willing to keep their secrets again, assuming he’s sufficiently recovered.

She pulls up the ongoing footage from the portal on the briefing room’s main display. The portal itself is in a nearby hangar - the mad scientist who built the thing was kind enough to do so in an old, abandoned airfield; likely the decision had more to do with the cost of moving materials, but Jemma appreciates it nonetheless as it allows them to retreat from the heat of the rain forest to the cool of the Bus whenever possible. The area has been secured and the DWARFs are keeping watch to ensure no one disturbs the site and nothing comes through.

“Are they sending a tank too?” Ward asks gruffly as a large, meandering shape comes into view. It reminds Jemma of an ankylosaurus and she’s already forming theories about parallel evolution on similarly formed planets.

“There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest the creatures on the planet are intelligent enough to come through the portal,” she points out, trying to count the spines on the creature’s tail before it can disappear back into the trees.

“Yeah, but they could be dumb enough.”

Jemma huffs and readies herself to launch into a lecture about basic instinct being plenty to warn animals away from unknown phenomena such as this, but is stopped before she can start by a voice from the lounge behind her.

“You know, if I hadn’t seen _Jurassic Park_ , I wouldn’t be nearly as terrified right now.”

Jemma whirls on the spot, all of her earlier annoyances forgotten because- 

“ _Will!_ ” she shrieks and rushes into his arms. He’s got a bag with him, which hits the floor right before _she_ hits _him_ , but she doesn’t much care about that because she’s kissing her boyfriend for the first time in one hundred and thirty-two days.

The time apart is likely why he’s sporting a thin beard - he’s never gotten quite back into the habit of shaving daily since returning to Earth - but she doesn’t mind nearly enough not to kiss him thoroughly.

“Like I said,” Coulson is musing when Jemma finally pulls back, “no problems with this one. See you in the hangar in ten.”

Will nods over Jemma’s head, going briefly soldier-stiff in her arms. “Yes, sir.”

Behind her, Jemma hears the briefing room emptying but she can’t take her eyes off Will. “You’re _here_ ,” she says. Her smile’s so big it’s starting to hurt but she can’t get it under control no matter how hard she tries. Not that she’s trying especially hard.

“Yeah.” His hands slide up her back and she very much regrets the layers of clothing between them and her skin. “SHIELD thought they should have someone who’s actually been to an alien planet here. I’m supposed to help your specialist with threat assessment. I’m guessing he was the scowly one?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes. Ward’s overprotective. Especially after what happened the last time someone else was brought aboard the Bus.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Do I wanna know?”

She shakes her head and leans back so far as to place her hands on his chest. “Most likely not. What about you? Will you be all right with this?” He spent a decade on an alien world he still describes as _hell_ , Jemma has reason to be concerned about bringing him so near another portal.

His arm wraps around her waist, pulling her flush against him. “So long as you keep a safe distance, I’m good.”

She wiggles, on the verge of disagreement. “What’s a ‘safe’ distance?”

His teasing expression turns abruptly serious and his arm tightens. “ _Jemma_.”

She’s glad the others have given them their privacy; Will spent ten years utterly alone with only daily danger to keep him company, his fear for her life tends to come out looking rather fearsome itself. He doesn’t _mean_ it to be of course and she knows from experience he’ll be apologizing for this soon, so she pushes up on her toes to plant a quick kiss on his lips.

“I’ll stay however far away you like,” she promises. “But you have to let me study it. That’s why we’re both here.”

He sighs, his expression returning to the kindly one she loves so well. “Okay. I can live with that.”

“Good,” she says and spins out of his grasp in the direction of the bunks. If he’s staying for a while, he’ll need a place to sleep and while the Cage was fine for Agent Peterson, Coulson never specified as much for Will. Her bunk will be a tight fit, but she doubts he’ll mind.

 


	13. callipygian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two fics for the prompt callipygian (having a well-shaped buttocks).

Jemma blames herself. Really she does. She told Will she was going out to chart the stars, only to turn right back around and head inside because she’d been foolish enough to forget her paper. She kept as quiet as she could, not wanting to endure any teasing, and then the pencil rolled off the table when she grabbed the paper and-

Point is, she’s on her hands and knees beneath the table, and Will’s just walked in and dropped trou without a moment’s hesitation.

“Fucking sand,” he mutters, shaking out his clothes before tossing them into the supply box they use as a hamper. 

Jemma’s cheeks are burning and though she knows she should look away, she can’t. This part really isn’t her fault though, it’s SHIELD’s. She’s far too used to seeing well-muscled men walking about the base in all states of undress (all right, generally they’re not _this_ undressed unless there’s been a chemical spill) and she’s gone  _months_ without a single bit of visual stimulation. She’s desperate.

And she really didn’t know Will was so well-formed under those baggy clothes of his. 

She mentally slaps herself. She should _not_ be thinking those sorts of things any more than she should be _ogling_ him. 

He bends over when he grabs fresh clothes for himself, giving her a very good look at his rear end. It is a very nice rear end. Firm and tight - but not _too_ tight - and perfect for leaving a little love bite on.

She gives herself another mental slap and screws her eyes shut. She is a _bad_ person. A _very_ bad person. She should be _ashamed_. 

She hears Will wander off soon enough and scrambles to get outside in case he decides to run up and check on her. 

He doesn’t.

Which is just as well, as she spends the better part of the day staring into the middle-distance, thinking about Will’s arse.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Two minutes after Lincoln declares him fit as a fiddle, Will’s back in his quarters. About a second after that, he’s got his arms full of Jemma. 

She’s kissed him and held him and slept next to him almost every night, but she’s refused to really touch him since he came back. It’s like she’s afraid he’s gonna break or something. Which is sweet and all - he’s always loved how much she cares - but he’s as frustrated as can be and it only takes one sweep of her tongue to get him hard.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he breathes and hoists her onto his hips.

She giggles - God, he’s missed her giggles. He’s heard her laugh since coming back, but there’s this special variation she only makes when she’s turned on and it always hits him in just the right spot low in the gut. 

She moves against him, teasing him with her breasts pressed into his chest as much as with her mouth on his. He starts to move for the bed but keeps it slow; half because he’s still feeling a little unsteady under Earth’s gravity and half because as much as he wants to reach the main event, he doesn’t want this part to end. 

Her warmth against him, her hands in his hair, her weight in his arms. It’s all so familiar but so deliciously different. She’s no longer the lone spot of heat in a tepid desert or the only other person in the whole world. And she weighs more. She’s not skin and bones, so light that thoughts of foraging farther out are gonna intrude on the moment. While he’s always liked every bit of her, gloried in the feel of her body the way he never has with any other woman, there’s something deeply satisfying about her rounded ass in his palms right now.

She’s safe and she’s alive and she’s healthy, and all of that’s better than any sex.

 


	14. ficlets (homecoming)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exceptionally short fics written for various prompts, all about Will making it home.

She can’t keep her eyes open - and that’s a good sign, there’s nothing bright enough on the planet to hurt her eyes - but she sees Fitz’s face before they close on her and those are most definitely his arms around her.

“ _Fitz_ ,” she sighs, falling against his chest.

He laughs and she can feel his head tipping back, presumably to see the others (she can hear Skye crying). But then there’s a gasp and the rubble they’re sitting in shifts.

“Oh my God,” Will moans. His hand blindly touches her face (she’s too exhausted from that run to laugh) and moves past her towards Fitz. “This is Fitz, right? Because that’s not your hair.”

“It’s Fitz,” she says. She should explain Will to her team, but she’s having trouble keeping awake, so she just says, “This is Will,” and pulls his hand away from Fitz’s hair. 

“And this is Earth right? Because I did not just use my last shot so we could still be in hell.”

Jemma doesn’t have an answer for that (Coulson gives one, she thinks), she’s too busy falling asleep, Will’s hand still clutched tightly in hers.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I’m sorry, what were you saying?” Jemma asks. She does manage to keep her focus on Bobbi while asking - but only for a count of three. After that her gaze is inexorably drawn to the bed beside hers.

She wants very much to make the effort required to climb from her own bed and cross the gulf between them, but he’s hooked up to so many machines she’s sure to get in the way. And he looks so _frail_. Her Will was big and strong and stalwart on the planet, but here he’s only a man, one of billions. He’s tiny.

Bobbi hasn’t spoken again - or if she has, Jemma’s missed it entirely once more - and Jemma shoots her another glance, only to find her smiling.

“You really care about him, don’t you?” Bobbi asks. That was not, Jemma is certain, what Bobbi came in here to say.

“He saved me,” she says quietly, returning her focus to him.

Bobbi’s quiet for a long time, long enough that Jemma would think she’d gone if her presence weren’t a weight at the edge of her awareness. She notices everyone - the lab techs working outside, the agents passing in the halls - there are so many people on this world; it will take some getting used to.

She knows the cause for the silence - how can she not when her first act upon arriving home was to pounce on Will and kiss him in her delight? Happy as she was, exhausted as she was, she couldn’t miss the looks her friends exchanged. But she’s not going to allow herself to worry about that now. She’s not going to worry about anything at all, save for Will.

“He’s going to be fine,” Bobbi says. “He’s lucky - the conditions were enough like Earth that his adjustment won’t be too bad, but after so long…”

Jemma nods her understanding, using the motion to scoot a little lower in her bed so that she can better see Will’s face. He’s lucky, but it’s a hard road ahead. And Jemma will be there with him, every step of the way.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When the pod docks, there’s an immediate cry from within for medical. Jemma’s in no shape to provide it - she’s in great need of it herself still thanks to Ward and the telekinetic - but she rushes forward anyway. Mack is exiting the pod just as she reaches it and throws himself bodily across the narrow aisle to get out of her way. Fitz and Coulson are still inside and she passed Daisy on the way, but she doesn’t care about any of them, not when she sees the man smiling weakly up at her from the narrow cot.

She doesn’t know how but the next solid, concrete memory she has is of half-kneeling beside him, half-laying atop him as she sobs into his ragged old shirt. It smells  _horrid_ now she’s not wrapped in her own stink, but it smells like _him_ and its texture is as familiar to her as that of her favorite jumper. She buries her face in it.

Behind her, she hears voices speaking outside the pod, the gentle murmur of words pitched low so as not to disturb her. Lincoln’s one of them; he’s here to see to Will, which will require Jemma to move. She’s not certain she’s capable of it and clings to him all the tighter for fear of being forced away.

“Hey,” Will says. His voice is rough and tired, much like the hand that’s been falling repeatedly over her hair and back in a motion too awkward to be called a stroke.

She sets her chin on his ribs to meet his eyes over his chest.

“Why ‘re y’ crying?” he slurs. For that, his smile is no less bright. His other hand lifts to stiffly wipe at her cheek. 

She wipes at the other with the heel of her hand. “When I came back and you- and you weren’t with me, I thought I’d lost you.” Her efforts do no good, now that she’s aware of her tears she can’t seem to make them stop.

The hushed conference outside is breaking up and the footsteps behind Jemma echo painfully in the small space. 

“Simmons,” Coulson says and fingers just brush her shoulder before falling away as Will lifts his hands.

He catches her face awkwardly between them and there’s hardly any strength in his grip, but she needs little prodding to lean forward so he can kiss her briefly. His eyes fix on hers, dark and intense in a way she hasn’t seen them since she wandered into the No Fly Zone.

“You’ll never lose me,” he says. He’s shaking with effort and she pushes her hands between them, forcing him flat on his back. “You hear me? Not ever.” His arms fall limp at his sides and Lincoln rushes in to examine him. “I’m gonna- I’ll be-” He drags in a breath but she knows what he means to say.

“Good,” she says firmly as Coulson pulls her back to sit on the tiny bench running along the opposite side of the pod. He sits beside her, thigh-to-thigh and lets her hold his hand while Lincoln works. Will’s eyes start to drift shut under the weight of the drugs. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Will Daniels.”

Will smiles just before he slips under and the expression stays on his face until he wakes up, safe and sound at the Playground.

 

 


	15. (even more) ficlets

Now they’re just playing dirty. 

Will’s stomach cramps as the smell of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and steaming gravy wafts up his nose. He’s had dreams about food like this - really vivid ones that had him seriously thinking about that last bullet. But that’s not what has his resolve cracking.

“Here. You look really hungry.” The pretty young woman kneeling next to his cot is dangerous. She’s easily the most beautiful thing he’s seen in years, right up there next to the sunlight he caught glimpses of before they tossed him in this cell. Her brunette hair kind of reminds him of the sun, with the way the stark lights overhead turn warm when they reflect off it.

 _Wow_. Less than a minute around a pretty woman and he’s already waxing poetic. He’s been alone too long.

She forks off one corner of the meatloaf. The crusty edge bows inward before breaking under the gentle pressure and the gravy seeps into the cracks. She adds a dollop of the potatoes, complete with one picture-perfect scallion, to the bite before holding it up to him. His mouth waters.

“Try some?” she asks, bobbing the fork like she’s hoping to entice a picky child.

He leans his shoulders back against the wall and forces his attention to the door. A shadow moves in the window. They’re still watching, these people who picked him off the floor and cleaned him up and then, when he wasn’t what they expected, locked him up down here. HYDRA, they call themselves, and he gets the feeling if he doesn’t start talking soon, they’re gonna stop with the carrot. And the stick’ll make him wish he was still in hell.

The bite of meatloaf disappears into her mouth and the tines of the fork slowly reappear as her eyes flutter. A low groan rumbles through Will’s chest.

He tries to ignore her pleased smile and the warm blush on her cheeks. He can almost imagine she isn’t evil.

But she is; he has to remember that.

He shifts in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable. “You want to bring It here.”

She follows his gaze over her shoulder to the door. “Yes,” she agrees softly while forking off another bite. “They do.”

It could be nothing, could just be his isolation making him read into things, but he thinks there’s a subtle emphasis on the _they_. He meets her eyes over the bite she offers up. He hasn’t had to read another human being in years so maybe he’s wrong, maybe her open expression has suddenly shuttered, maybe the warmth in her eyes has dimmed to something meaningful, maybe he’s not totally alone in wanting to keep that monster from finding a way to Earth.

He leans forward and lets her slip the fork past his lips. It’s the best damn thing he’s ever tasted.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Oh bloody hell,” Jemma mutters, finally having had enough. 

“You okay?” Will asks readily, and she takes some small comfort in knowing she hasn’t woken him up.

She wraps her arms tighter around herself and shifts on the sleeping bag, which of course results in the sand beneath her shifting so she has to start from scratch in her hunt for a comfortable sleeping position. “Fine,” she says, sounding anything but. “I’d just forgotten how much colder it is on the surface.” 

It’s not _cold_ , precisely, more like tepid. When they were walking it was fine, their bodies warm enough that it was barely noticeable, but now that they’ve stopped for the night, the air and ground are attempting to steal what little warmth she generates. 

She knows that this is all in pursuit of getting them home but … she misses their caves.

Will is kind enough not to point out she’d be warmer if she slept _inside_ the sleeping bag, a claim she would argue with as it would put her that much closer to the ground. And perhaps she’s hoping he'll say just that - an argument would warm her up, even if it would put sleep that much further off - but he does sigh long-sufferingly.

Poor Will. She knows she’s not unwelcome - another person to talk to can hardly be that - but she’s also a bit of an imposition. She’s upended his entire life and, if she knows him at all, likely right about how his natural sense of chivalry is demanding he give her his sleeping bag even though that will leave him no protection whatsoever from the chill.

Sure enough, she hears him stand and the sound of his bag lifting from the sand.

She turns to tell him he needn’t, she’s only being dramatic, but finds the sleeping bag falling next to instead of on top of her.

“Roll over,” he grumbles in that tone of voice she knows means she’s crossed some line. If they were in the caves, he’d walk away and she wouldn’t see him again until meal time. But they’re _not_ in the caves and she finds herself meekly following his instruction.

She’s barely begun to settle with her back to him when his arm wraps around her waist and she finds herself dragged into the warmth of his chest. 

“Better?” he asks. 

Of course. He’s being practical, sharing body heat between them. She doesn’t know what she was thinking - not that she was thinking anything at all. Of course that’s all he’s doing.

She adjusts her hips and shoulders a little so that they’re aligned properly. Will makes a pained noise deep in his chest. “Sorry,” she says on a wince and hurriedly makes herself comfortable against him, doing her best not to elbow him accidentally. It isn’t difficult; for a man who’s spent fourteen years eking out an existence, he’s hardly skin and bones. Warm muscle is better than any pillow and she sinks gratefully into him. “You’re very comfy,” she sighs, her eyes drifting shut.

“Don’t-” He stops himself and his hand feels tense on her stomach. She catches it, fearful he’ll roll away, and twists her neck to see what’s the matter.

He’s lifted himself somewhat over her as though he truly was considering leaving her. Something in her goes taut when their eyes meet and whatever she wasn’t thinking before, she isn’t thinking it again now.

He sighs. “Just go to sleep.” He settles at her back again. She can feel the sharp brush of his beard and every breath he exhales falls over her neck, warming her more effectively than any argument. 

When they get home, she thinks - though she still isn’t sure what she’s thinking about.

She waits until his hand relaxes beneath hers and then laces their fingers together, not wanting to lose him while she sleeps.

 


	16. soulmates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two drabbles set in the same universe.

Jemma feels pleasantly heavy and clean and the air has that particular glow that only comes in midafternoon. It’s been ages since she truly napped in a bed - more often than not she catches cat naps while slumped over her lab bench or sometimes makes it as far as the couches in the lounge - but she must have needed it-

The lounge. The _Bus_.

“It’s all right,” a man she doesn’t know says gently as she jumps to a sitting position. He’s older, Coulson’s age or perhaps even older than that, and smiles in a gentle sort of way that reminds her of her own father. “You’re safe.”

She looks around, recognizing the look of a SHIELD medical facility. She spent several days in a room precisely like this one after having her appendix removed six years ago. “My team?’ she asks, somewhat hoarsely. And then, remembering the fall, adds, “Ward?”

“All fine.” The man settles back in his seat beside her bed. “Agent Ward is undergoing some tests right now - nothing serious, just checking to be sure he’s not infected.”

She shudders at the thought and then at the worry for Fitz that follows. Both men exposed themselves to the virus to save her life. Much as she appreciates it - especially given that she’s alive now as a direct result of both of their actions - she’s certain to have nightmares of their deaths for weeks.

She forces herself to take another look at the man, from his smile all the way down to his expensive shoes. “Are you my doctor?” she asks, knowing full well he isn’t. SHIELD is generous, it has to be given the danger even its safest agents are routinely put in, but they don’t pay enough for shoes like those.

“No, I’m more of a … friend - to SHIELD. When they need me, anyway.” He extends a hand. “Gideon Malick.”

She knows the name. Mr. Malick is a vastly wealthy man and seems to have his hand in every humanitarian pot in the world. She’s afraid her handshake is rather weak. “Jemma Simmons,” she returns dully.

He settles back once more and steeples his hands. “Now, Ward tells me it’s a new development and, as it isn’t in your file, I’m inclined to believe him. And given the events of the day, as well as the temperament of-” His smile hitches on one side. “Well. The point is I have to ask: do you know you’ve received your soulmark?”

Her first inclination is to say no, she hasn’t got one, but his phrasing stops her. Her heart hammers in her chest as she remembers the pain, so intense it overtook the buzzing that would surely have rattled her bones out of their joints if it lasted much longer. But at that point she was already in the open air; there was no time to realize what was happening.

She pulls at the collar of her hospital gown and finds the mark already half-exposed atop her collarbone. She must have been dead on her feet to have missed it when she showered and changed.

 _William Daniels_ it reads in a hurried script, as though the writer has no time for silly things like writing thoughts down.

“I’d have to get a handwriting expert in to be sure,” Mr. Malick says softly, “but it sure looks like his.”

She drops the collar back into place and meets his eyes. “And why can’t we simply check him?” Soulmates receive their marks at the same time, that’s always how it works. The fastest way to confirm the man Mr. Malick is thinking of as her soulmate would be to look at his collarbone.

That ever-present smile falters. “I’m afraid the Will Daniels I knew is missing. We’ll double-check, of course, SHIELD will be able to monitor the other Will Danielses of the world to see if any of them suddenly start googling your name but…”

Jemma barely hears the reassurances. “How long?” she asks, her hands fisting tightly in the thin sheet covering her legs.

“He was declared dead more than ten years ago now.”

The room tilts and her vision darkens. The next real and solid thing she knows is Mr. Malick pressing a cup of water to her lips while muttering soothing words, sounding much as her father would. She very much wishes she could cry.

“There you are.” He runs a hand over her hair. “You’re all right now, Agent Simmons.”

The reminder that she’s an agent - an agent of SHIELD - does wonders. It straightens her spine and sharpens her focus, if only briefly.

Mr. Malick’s eyes sparkle with approval. “That’s why I came here. The circumstances surrounding Will’s disappearance weren’t exactly run of the mill. And if your Will is my Will, that means he’s alive.”

“But you don’t know where he is,” she says, sounding pitiful even to her own ears.

Mr. Malick’s smile widens. “No. But we know how to get there. The only trouble has been the getting home. I’m hoping, now that we know he’s still alive out there, a smart woman like you might be able to help with that. Perhaps this is destiny tipping its hand.”

Jemma looks down at her mark. The top half of the _Will_ is showing and she runs her fingers over the tender skin. Despite Mr. Malick’s reassurances, there’s something inside of her that knows he was right to come here, knows the Will he talks about _is_ her soulmate. 

She meets his eyes resolutely. She just beat an unbeatable alien disease, she’ll find Will Daniels, no matter what it takes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Pain. So intense he’s sure he’s gonna die. Sure there’s some new monster sitting on his chest, tearing a hole in him.

Only there isn’t. When he finally manages to open his eyes there’s nothing there.

Something internal then. A parasite, maybe. Or, in a supreme act of cosmic irony, his appendix has burst and he’s gonna die on an alien planet of a mundane, human ailment.

Whatever it is, he hopes it kills him soon because nothing - _nothing_ \- in his life has ever hurt like this.

He presses his hands to the spot - it’s fucking _warm_ , that should _not_ be happening - and the cave lights blur in his vision. Like sunlight. Like the light of the great beyond. Either way, he’s game after so long on this hell planet.

Just so long as the pain ends soon.

And it does. Slowly but surely the pain lessens until there’s nothing left but a dull ache. It’s still warm, but not like someone’s stuffed his ribcage full of hot coals anymore. He breathes deep, the sound of it filling the caves.

After a few minutes, he lifts his head to take a look at the affected area. If he wasn’t lying down, he’d fall flat on his ass. Heck, there’s a decent chance he might fall off the bed anyway.

It’s a name. It’s a _soulmark_.

His head hits the pillow and he blinks at the suddenly blurry stones overhead while his fingers trace the letters.

He - Will Daniels, last man standing, only soul in hell - has got a soulmate. Somewhere out there in the universe is a woman who’s meant for him, whose very soul cries out for his.  

And that sucks, yeah. He’s stranded on an alien planet with no way home. She’s gonna look for him and never find him. It probably won’t even occur to her to think a dead astronaut is her soulmate. (And he’s very consciously not thinking about what else this means for her. Life he’s lived, place he’s at, what must’ve happened to her to cause the connection to snap into place _now_? And how much worse is that gonna be for her when she realizes she can’t find him?)

 _Jemma Simmons._ He reads the name by touch, not sight, still too overwhelmed to take another look. “I’m sorry,” he sighs, hoping she can somehow hear him, somehow know he wishes he could be with her. “I’m so sorry, Jemma.”

He’ll be with her one day. In theory, anyway. When he really does leave this hell finally, whatever’s next has gotta be heaven if it means being with her there. He wishes he could see her in the flesh before then, but the promise of anything is good. Real good.

He thinks - maybe - he can feel her. The shadow of someone else at the edges of his awareness, like standing alone in a stadium and realizing there’s someone else way down at the other end. Or like foraging and realizing It’s coming. But this is good. It’s not frightening, not imposing. It’s just … someone else. Someone he can wave to and know he’s not alone in the universe.

For the first time in a long time, he falls asleep with a smile on his face.

 


	17. ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A (very) little bit of s4 jemmawill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: ghost from an anon

“You’re- you’re not real,” Jemma says, stumbling back from the entity blocking the door. She will not call it the G-word, no matter what Mack keeps insisting. Her back hits the wall and she cringes. She’s put herself in rather a terrible position here, hasn’t she?

The rippling along the florescent surface of the creature pauses and the part of it she’d like to call its head - assuming it’s as human underneath all that refracted light as its general outline implies - tips to one side. 

“Well, you’re  _real_ ,” she amends, worried she’s insulted the … whatever it is. “But you’re not a ghost. No matter what you and your friends are trying to convince us of.”

These supposed phantasms have been terrorizing the base all evening; locking doors, opening containment units, jumping out of dark corridors. The base is in an uproar - and it would be in lockdown except they can’t seem to figure out how when these creatures keep overriding it. And how they’re capable of that is anyone’s guess.

Actually no, it’s  _Jemma’s_  guess. It’s her job to figure out what they are and how they’re accomplishing all of this. 

That in mind, she straightens her spine as the entity approaches. “What do you want?” she demands in the tone of voice she learned from May, the one which always has her lab techs scrambling to obey her slightest whim.

A hand - and it  _is_  a hand, this close she can see through the glare of the light to the limb beneath - lifts towards her. Her breath catches in her chest as something - not something  _solid_ , but  _something_ , almost like a puff of air - thumbs the necklace she’s taken to wearing lately. The star, because she’s decided not to be sick of them, not when they always remind her of impossible happiness in impossible circumstances.

It’s a trick of the light. Or some sort of manipulation. The entity has gotten in her head. That’s the only explanation for why, when she looks past the light around its face, she sees Will.

His mouth tips to one side and she thinks -  _no_ , no she does not because it’s a trick - that it forms the words  _and I’m still here too_.

 


	18. the best day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU where they see the sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: sunlight

“It’s beautiful,” Jemma says, but what she means is that this moment, even happening where it is, is perfect. She’s still buzzing pleasantly inside and out from Will’s attentions - and a little from that sip she had of the wine, it was  _very_  strong. He’s lying along her back, the only spot of true warmth in this blue wasteland. Or he would be, if the sun wasn’t just risen. 

After months in the lukewarm twilight, she can feel its heat immediately. It washes over her in a wholly new sort of buzz, bringing her nerves to eager attention.

“It really is.”

She smiles, taking in the white sand when her eyes can no longer stand to stare directly at sun. “You’re missing it,” she chides. “It’s only going to last a few minutes.” She can feel his eyes on her instead of it, as heavy as his fingers on every inch of her exposed skin.

“Sunlight’s only useful for what you see by it,” he says. There’s a retort on her tongue, something about photosynthesis and how important green things are, but she doesn’t manage to get it out before he continues. “And the only thing on this planet that I wanna see is you.”

How does he  _do_  that? She spent months thinking he was this gruff and hard warrior, who should not have been a warrior, trapped in the wilderness. And yes, slowly - very, very slowly - she began to see there was more to him than all of that, a softness he was afraid to expose for fear of its being injured by It or the planet or both. (Or her. She’s come to realize she had more ability to hurt him than anything else here.) But he still surprises her when he says the loveliest things. It should not be possible for a man in his circumstances to be so full of love and, if she’s being a little poetic herself, light.

She rolls to her back on the rough blanket he dragged out here for their picnic (and for the impromptu nakedness; very forward thinking of him, that). 

His eyes are fixed on her and his smile is fit to outshine the sun. She lifts a hand to his cheek and almost - almost - is distracted from him by the sight of her own hand in the light, but then he tips his cheek into her palm and his face changes. “Beautiful,” she says. 

She drinks in every inch of him. The sculpted muscles and all the places his bones show through. Smooth skin and scars alike. Will in sunlight. The most beautiful thing she’s ever seen on this world or any other.

The shadows start to grow long and though there is part of her that longs to see a sunset just once more in her life, the fear of watching it set on Will is greater. She kisses him so that she  _can’t_ see, can’t watch the shadows grow longer and heavier and darker until the twilight settles around them for the next seventeen years.

He breaks the kiss before she’s ready, when her body has just begun to throb for more, and turns her, tucks her back into his chest again and says, “Look.”

The sun is just disappearing past the horizon. The white sky turns a flurry of colors - reds and purples and golds she never thought she’d see again - and the sun dips down, and the twilight returns.

He kisses her cheek and then her jaw and then down to rest his head in the curve of her neck. Though her skin still aches with longing, she’s glad that’s all he does. If he saw her, he might see the single tear that’s fallen without her permission.

“Good day,” he says, his tone somewhere between solemn and joking.

She laces their fingers over her stomach, relaxing more fully against him. “It was perfect.” If it had lasted a year, she can’t think of anything she’d rather have spent it doing.

 


	19. ficlets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One-to-five sentence fics for various prompts

 

**burn**

 

“Sometimes,” he says, taking his turn at confessing deep dark secrets, “I watch you.”

After a moment or two of enjoying the way his hand trails up and down her bare side, she realizes he doesn’t plan on following that up with anything. “And?”

“Inappropriately,” he adds, “when you’re not looking.”

She rolls her eyes and kisses him because sometimes he’s just  _too_  adorable. “Just because I’m not looking doesn’t mean I don’t know.” And how could she not, when every glance since their first meeting, no matter how innocent, has left her skin tingling?

 

 

**test**

 

“ _‘Who suffered a wardrobe malfunction during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show?’_ ” Simmons reads. “What is this?”

Phil snatches the paper out of her hand. “ _This_  is Daniels’ next history test. No cheating and giving him the answers, he’s got a lot to catch up on.”

He locks it away in one of his drawers where hopefully nosey scientists won’t find it and, before he can turn back around, finds himself the recipient of a very tight hug around the back.

 

 

**holiday**

 

Two Weeks of Will Daniels sounds a little extreme, but Jemma insists it’s necessary to make up for the fourteen years of birthdays he never got to celebrate.

 

 

**sky**

 

“You don’t have to come,” Will says.

Jemma’s head dips in a slow nod, her eyes never leaving the fighter jet behind him.

“Really, you can just watch from the ground, it’s o-”

“Will,” she says firmly. “Shut up.” She marches past him to climb in.

 

 

**vintage**

 

“I got them from my cousin,” he says into the awkward silence. He starts fiddling with the necklaces in the box. “I don’t know who all they’re from - my mom, aunts, grandmas - but I thought … maybe … to replace the one you lost?”

She looks up from the box with teary eyes. Before he can think of how to fix this monumental fuck up, she’s thrown herself at him in a bear hug.

 

 

**animal**

 

He thinks, at first, that she’s gotten him a companion dog to help with his recovery so she won’t have to spend so much time with him, but more often than not it ends up him and her and Buzz all piled together in the same bed or curled up on the same couch or out for runs together. 

He’s starting to wonder if he was just her excuse and Buzz was really for her all along.

 

 

**care**

 

“I don’t care,” Jemma says, cutting him off. “I don’t care about your plans or the Earth or your  _godhood_. I only care about Will. So save him, and I’ll get you home.”

Death smiles. Jemma tells herself she doesn’t care.

 

 

**alone**

 

He’s home, on Earth, with actual food and running water and other people for the first time in fourteen long years. But with Jemma still stranded in that hell, he’s never felt so alone.

 

 

**reveal**

 

They’ve each seen things they shouldn’t. It’s just like the days on the Bus; close quarters mean sometimes eyes land where they shouldn’t and boundaries are crossed. So it’s not like it’s the first time she’s seeing him shirtless, but it might as well be for the way her fingers are shaking and her tongue is sticking to the roof of her mouth.

 

 

**morning**

 

It seems like every day there’s something new that is the Most Beautiful Thing Jemma’s seen since coming back to Earth, but she doesn’t think anything will be better than watching her wedding ring sparkle in the morning light. (Or she thinks that until Will wakes up and rolls her beneath him. His smile when he calls her Mrs. Daniels will probably hold top spot for quite a while.)

 


	20. stuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She can't leave.

She can’t leave.

She wants to laugh. The portal’s  _right there_ , a swirling mess of sand, and Fitz - lovely, beautiful Fitz - is reaching out to her, calling her to take his hand. Earth - showers and hamburgers and  _sunshine_  - is only a few feet away. 

(Maybe. There’s a small, cringing fear in the back of her mind that Fitz’s voice is just the one It would use to trick her.) 

But she can’t go.

“Jemma!” The cord at Fitz’s belt goes taut and he curses, fumbling for the clasp.

“No!” she yells, terrified he’ll trap himself here with her. “I can’t. There’s-” Seconds. How he’s managed to get the portal to stay open this long she can only imagine but it must be a strain. “I’m not alone,” she says finally. “I can’t leave him.”

Fitz’s hand drops. His feet drag back in the sand. He struggles to plant them. He’s being pulled back. Back to safety and family and hope she left on the side of a gorge two days’ walk from here. She aches to follow. But she won’t. Not without Will.

“Jemma,  _please_ ,” he begs while he slides ever closer to the shifting sands. “We’ll come back. We’ll save them. Just  _come with me now_.”

She’s barely listening, instead fumbling at her pockets. She still carries her phone. Powerless at this point, it’s more a security blanket than anything. But there’s power on the other side.

She tosses it to Fitz. He’s not expecting it and stumbles back. His foot slips on unstable sand. He yells her name once more and then he’s gone.

She watches the spot he fell through for a long time. It’s silly - sillier than her clinging to her phone all these weeks after it died - she knows that even if he manages to get the portal open again immediately, it won’t open here. But that was  _Fitz_. He was here. Real and alive. 

She smiles and turns back for home. She won’t tell him about the portal or Fitz; he’ll only feel guilty to think that she stayed for his sake and she’ll never be able to convince him that it was for hers. Electric lights and running water and sunshine are all well and good, but there’s no Will Daniels on Earth and she needs him as much as she needs all the rest of it.

 


	21. reasonable explanation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A (very very) little bit of s4 jemmawill

She’s sure there’s a reasonable explanation for this. Time paradoxes or alternate universes maybe? Perhaps Mr. Reyes and his companion have been up to some mischief or- oh! He could be another of Radcliffe’s LMDs. Though that would be terribly disappointing were it the case.

Not that Jemma much cares what the explanation is when Will is kissing every thought right out of her head. He’s holding her. On Earth. And he’s alive. On Earth. His skin is warm and his heart is beating beneath her hand and though his lungs aren’t working right this moment, she’s certain when this kiss ends they’ll be quite busy.

The point is she doesn’t care how or why. All she cares is that he’s here.


	22. I thought you should know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> post-3x10 AU where Will makes it back to Earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “You don’t have to say anything, if you don’t want. I just thought you should know” from jemmaqueenofspace
> 
> Undeading form stolen from Eureka.

There is, as it turns out, a lot of work to do after you fall off the face of the Earth for more than a decade. There’s the recovery, of course - physical and psychological (and it turns out SHIELD’s resident shrink is a monster so he’s kind of on his own there) - and then the paperwork. He was declared KIA less than two years after the mission began, which he’s happy to discover everyone else finds just as suspicious as he does so they’re looking into it, but it also means paperwork. 

He’s sitting in the lounge - an accomplishment seeing as he walked here all on his own and was only so winded he needed the chair, not the couch - staring at form 924/B. Coulson says he’ll have to file it in triplicate (which may or may not have been a joke about those twins he’s supposed to file two of them with) and after that Daisy’ll get him his life back. Or a new life. She was very strenuous about letting him know he could be someone totally different if he “felt safer.”

Between that and the death certificate dated sixteen months after he left Earth, he gets the idea SHIELD thinks someone wants him dead.

But he’s not thinking about that right now; he’s a little busy trying to remember how to sign his own name.

“Oh!”

Will’s head snaps up so fast he can hear his neck pop. Jemma’s standing in the doorway, one hand on the frame like she’s not sure she should come in.

“Don’t let me stand in your way,” he says, gesturing to the open lounge. If she wants to play the old Galaga arcade game, he’s not gonna stop her. 

Oh, he’d like to. He wants- Well, truth is he wants to be with her, right next to her all the time, drinking in her smiles and her voice, close enough to touch and be touched the way they were…

But they’re not there anymore. Jemma’s got her life, her friends … Fitz. She doesn’t need some broken old astronaut invading her space. So he’s been trying to give her plenty of it since she brought him back.

“Literally,” he adds when she still hesitates, “I’ll need at least another twenty minutes before I’m good to stand up.”

He tries to make it a joke, something to get her smiling again, but it only makes her expression fall.

“Are you all right? Should I call Lincoln?”

Lincoln’s his doctor. Not someone Jemma ever mentioned on the planet, but she said a lot of good things before leaving Will in his care. He’s a good guy. Good doctor. Just not the one Will would’ve wanted.

“No, no. I’m fine,” he says quickly. “Just getting my sea legs back.” He gestures again to the rest of the lounge. “Really, do what you gotta do, I don’t mind.”

He watches her walk past him, but not any farther than that. He does listen to her footsteps though, but he figures he can be forgiven for that since there’s really no way not to hear them. That means he knows when she stops, just at the base of the stairs if he’s any judge, and turns around to tower over him.

“There’s something I have to say.”

He sets down his pen and shifts in his seat to give her his full attention. “Okay.” This is it, this is the moment she tells him what he already knows: she and Fitz are together. He mentally focuses on his face, on his expression. He’s not gonna let her know how much it devastates him to hear. 

“I love you.”

The room is utterly silent, no sounds from any other corner of the base, so there’s no way he could’ve misheard that. Maybe she misspoke?

“You don’t have to say anything,” she rushes to add, “if you’d rather not. I just thought you ought to know. Since I never said it. On the planet.”

Okay, maybe she did say what he thought she said.

But he thought … No. That doesn’t …

He can’t think. He’s trying to make sense of not only what she said but the last couple weeks in the context of what she said and he  _can’t think_. He just keeps getting stalled on those three little words, ones he never thought he’d hear.

“Right. I’ll just go ask Daisy if she can bury me alive now.”

She turns to walk away and all he knows is that she can’t leave, he can’t let her, not after that.

“Jemma, wait.” He reaches to catch her hand but she’s a little too far and he has to stand. For a heartbeat it’s fine but then his knee slips sideways and he goes down. He doesn’t have enough common sense to let her go, but his reflexes are still good enough to ensure she lands on top of him.

“Will! Oh my goodness. Will! Are you all right?” Her hands are everywhere. Clinical, not sexual, but anything is better than the weeks of nothing since he came back. “What happened? Tell me where it hurts.”

He wraps an arm around her back, pulling her flush against him and stalling her search for the injury that it’s there. “Nothing hurts,” he says into the scant space between them. 

She blinks, wide eyed and just a little confused. He puts her worries to rest with the kiss they’ve both been waiting months for.

 


	23. don't shoot (1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> role reversal AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: "don't shoot" from safelycapricious

“Don’t shoot!” Will says, stepping closer.

“What are you  _doing_?” Taylor demands from behind him.

Will waves him off and keeps his hands up, showing he doesn’t have any other weapons. Which, honestly, he feels kinda shitty about. Because he  _does_  have other weapons: a knife in his boot and a machete in the crate that’s coming closer with every step he takes. But his gun, that’s up ahead, in the shaking hands of a woman who looks more scared than dangerous. 

Not that the two are mutually exclusive; he’s just saying, she looks freaked. 

He gives her a warm smile, hoping it’ll put her a little at ease. “I’m Will. Will Daniels. I’m from Earth. And since I haven’t heard anything about Levi’s branching out beyond the solar system, I’m pretty sure you are too.”

She looks down at her jeans, not far enough he can make a move, but enough he knows she’s listening. And knows what he’s talking about.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

Her head snaps up and her grip tightens on his gun. He falls back a step.

“You’re not real,” she says.

Okay, interesting accusation. But not wholly unexpected. She’s dirty, scared, and, if the wide eyes are rough voice are any indication, very alone.

He nods to the gun. “So what’s that?”

She twists it slowly, examining it.

“If I’m not real,” he presses, moving slowly closer, “where’d you get that?”

“It’s a trick,” she says so softly he barely hears. “Someone left it and now It’s trying to trick me.”

“The gun is trying to trick her?” Taylor asks.

Damn idiot. That snaps her out of it. Too soon. Will’s not close enough, but he makes his move anyway.

He rushes her. She’s too slow to get off a shot before his hand closes around hers, twisting it and the gun behind her back. His other arm wraps around her, holding her to him while she thrashes and kicks.

She lands a couple good hits. He forces the gun from her grasp, lets it fall to the sand so he can catch the back of her head, force her to look at him.

“Hey, hey! Calm down! Calm down.”

She does. Or stops fighting anyway. Those big eyes fix on his face and her hand comes up not to hit him but to touch his cheek.

“You’re real,” she says. She’s skin and bones in a desert, so it says a lot that he sees a tear shimmer on her eyelashes.

“Yeah, I am,” he says. “Now why don’t you tell me your name?”

He feels her slipping before her vision loses focus, but she manages one word before she faints dead away in his arms. “Jemma.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the next chapter for a follow-up.


	24. don't shoot (2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More role reversal AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out the previous chapter for a little background on this 'verse.

Jemma looks good in his shirt. Of course, she’d look good in anything that isn’t the threadbare rags she was wearing when he carried her into the caves. He could feel every bone and joint through them and he felt sick thinking about what it must’ve been like for her all this time.

“Well,” Brubaker says as he wraps up his examination. “You’re alive.”

Those wide eyes of hers - made wider by the malnutrition - skitter around the cave, between faces and equipment and exits.

“So are you,” she says, somewhat in awe when she finally lands on Will. He gives her a smile. Her lips curl in response, but he gets the feeling they’re not quite sure how to return the expression.

He drops down on his haunches in front of her when Brubaker makes room. She doesn’t seem intimidated or bothered by the intrusion on her personal space, so he pushes it and takes her hand. She looks at their joined fingers curiously but doesn’t pull away.

“Back up top,” he says, “you said something was trying to trick you. Can you tell me what that was about?”

“That’s what he asks?” Taylor mutters. Brubaker shuts him down, saving Will the trouble. He knows things are tense with the no sun and the equipment not working and now this, but Austin’s still out collecting samples and that leaves Will in charge. If he wants to feed into the delusions of the feral woman they found in space, he gets to. 

Yeah, maybe Brubaker’s got a point.

She hugs her arms tight around herself, reminding him just how thin she is beneath his shirt. He aches for her, wishing he could sit her down and feed her MREs until she’s more than skin and bones.

“ _It_ ,” she says. Will can practically feel Taylor’s eye roll. “It tries to trick me.”

“What does?” Brubaker asks, using his doctor voice.

Her eyes snap up to him. “I- I don’t know. It rules this planet. Controls the wind and the sand. And It lies.” She looks to Will again and her hand tightens around his. “It looks like a man, but It isn’t. It’s  _inside_.”

“Okay,” Will says, hoping to cut her off.

“It will try to trick you too,” she insists. She’s shaking, getting worked up. If she keeps going like this, she’ll pass out again. “I think- I think It’s been killing people for centuries.”

“ _Okay_.” He slides a hand into her hair, holding her gaze and lending her some of his stability. “We’ll keep an eye out for anyone else running around here. I promise.”

She nods and, apparently satisfied, settles down some. 

“Why don’t you tell me how you got here?”

That answer’s easier. She got swallowed up by something she calls the Monolith, which sounds a lot like a bigger version of the stones NASA used to send them. He’s no scientist but he’s guessing, from the looks on the guys’ faces, that their understanding of that little bit of tech has just changed too. 

When he asks how long she’s been out here, she can’t give him an answer. No sun means no telling time. She’s learned to chart the stars, she says, but she has no idea how it measures up to Earth days and she didn’t even get a handle on it until she’d been here a while.

“You’ve really been able to track their movements?” Taylor asks, suddenly interested. “Without equipment?”

“I have a sextant.”

Will nearly laughs. “You traveled across space with the clothes on your back and a piece of eighteenth century nautical equipment?”

“They’re still used today,” Taylor mutters.

Will doesn’t worry about the note of insubordination, not while Jemma’s hand is tightening around his like that. 

“What?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t bring it with me,” she says carefully. “Someone else did.”

“Who?” Brubaker asks.

Jemma keeps her eyes fixed on Will. “I don’t know. But his bones are old.” She looks tired and worn, more than before. “All their bones are.”

Will looks to the others, who are exchanging a look that makes him even more worried than he was before. “Okay,” he says and gently shifts her, nudging so she goes down on her side on the cot. “Why don’t you get some rest? Brubaker and Taylor will watch out for you, so you won’t have to worry about anything trying to trick you.”

Her hand tightens. “What about you?”

He gives her another smile. This time he doesn’t get anything for it at all. “I’ve gotta go look for our captain. He’ll want to meet you.” He doesn’t add that Austin should’ve been back ages ago, that he was concerned when he carried her down and Brubaker reported it was still just him, and that he’s been downright worried ever since she woke up. It’s been too long.

Her expression cracks, turning heartbroken. “It probably got him.”

He smooths her hair away from her face. “Don’t worry. Austin’s a tough guy. I’ll be back before you wake up. Promise.”

He tries to pull his hand away, but she holds tight. He sighs. He really doesn’t wanna be mean about this, but he’s gotta go.

“You never said.” Her thumb slides over his knuckles while she examines the back of his hand.

“Said what?”

“Your name.”

He could hit himself. He asked for hers right off the bat but never bothered with his. “It’s Will. Will Daniels.”

Like that’s the switch to get her to go to sleep, her eyes start to flutter and her grip slackens as she relaxes into the pillow. “Nice to meet you, Will,” she says, and smiles. For real this time.

“You too, Jemma.”

 


	25. nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma wakes up from a nightmare

Jemma’s head hurts. And her leg too, now that she thinks about it. She tries to sit up to better see whatever’s sure to be digging into her skin, but when she tries to shift to that side, she can’t. Her wrist is tied down.

“What?” she asks. She feels sluggish. Her mind struggles to identify such simple things as the cot she sits on and the belt holding her to it.

“Jemma?”

Aching though it is, there’s no amount of pain in the world that could stop her head snapping around at the voice. “Will.”

He’s staring at her, eyes guarded, probing. He eases off the edge of the chair only a few feet from her, and she can’t breathe. Her heart is pounding in her chest and all she can seem to think is that it’s  _Will_. Here and alive and whole. 

She reaches for him the moment he’s near enough, and some of the stiffness in him melts away. He sinks onto the edge of the cot and covers her hand with his. His beard scrapes her palm and for some reason the feeling makes her want to cry. 

“You with me?” he asks.

She nods, dropping her hand to his neck and chest. She wishes the other were free so she could touch him, better reassure herself. “What happened?” she asks, hoping he has some explanation for why the sight of him has her near tears.

“It got you,” he says. His hand slips over her bare thigh, just below the spot that bothered her so before and she sees a bandage wrapped tight around her leg. “You fell, cut yourself. It got to you before I could. You’ve been in and out ever since.” His thumb brushes the edge of the bandage and his eyes are fixed firmly on it instead of her. “Hallucinating.”

 _Oh, god_ , she thinks, and can’t help but imagine him sitting in that chair, watching over her for - to judge by the bruising around the bandage - what must have been several days. She can’t imagine how difficult that must have been for him, especially after losing his crew. No wonder she’s restrained, for his safety as well as her own.

She tugs him closer as best she can, lets him feel her heart beating clear and strong. She’s as alive as he is. And she’s not going anywhere.

As she clings to him in return, flashes of memory begin to resurface through the aching in her skull. “I was on Earth,” she says softly.

He nods against her shoulder before easing back. His hands linger, holding and touching her far longer than is strictly necessary but not nearly so long as she’d like. “When I found you, you were … talking to people. Fitz and the rest. And when I brought you back-”

“I didn’t believe you were real,” she finishes, horror sweeping over her as she remembers. “I accused you of being a  _computer program_.” 

Though it surely made sense to her at the time, she can’t remember now whether she thought he was some sort of robot made to trick her by pretending to be Will or nothing but a bit of code meant to do the same. As best she can figure, in addition to the face-stealing robots haunting her waking nightmare, there was something about a Matrix-style computer program trapping people. She’d laugh at the absurdity if it weren’t so terrible. 

She touches his face again, remembering the pain she saw on it earlier. “I thought you were dead,” she says. “I thought It had gotten  _you_.” It’s almost genius, really, It making her think she was the survivor. She rests her head against Will’s. “You saved me. You brought me back.”

His arms slip around her again. “I won’t let it hurt you ever again,” he says into her neck. “I promise.”

She holds him tighter and silently promises never to let It hurt him either. The pain of finding herself back on Earth without him, of discovering he sacrificed himself to It so that she could escape, feels all too real. She never wants to endure that again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“It won’t be long now,” Crawford says softly, her sad eyes and heartfelt tone saying clearly what she’s afraid to. “I’m sorry.”

Phil forces himself to … to do something. He’ll never quite remember just what silent signal he gives that he doesn’t blame Crawford for her inability to pull off a miracle. After all, the woman he typically turns to for those is lying in the hospital bed, wasting away.

“She’s happy though, right?” Mack asks. He’s got Elena against his chest and is holding onto her like a lifeline. “Like Radcliffe and Agnes?”

No one answers him. They’re all too caught up in their own pain to bother.

“I shouldn’t be here,” Daisy says for what must be the tenth time. But she doesn’t move. She knows as well as the rest of them that at this point it makes no difference. Even if one of her search algorithms were able to finally locate Jemma in the Framework, getting her out would surely kill her; her body’s too far gone.

The sound on the heart monitor’s been shut off, but it’s still showing a pulse. Barely. Phil starts counting the seconds between beats. When he hits twenty, he feels Melinda’s hand slip into his, gripping tight. Mack’s pulled Daisy into his hug, and Elena’s taken her hand. Hell, even Piper is comforting Crawford down the hall. The only one without anybody is Fitz, who’s exactly where he’s been for weeks now: sitting next to the bed, clinging tight to Jemma’s hand. His lips move against her knuckles, softly begging her to find her way back.

Phil can only hope Mack’s right and whatever Jemma’s experiencing in there is a whole lot better than what they’re stuck with out here without her.

 


	26. bear hug

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma finds herself trapped by It again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: bear hug from safelycapricious

When the Inhuman’s paralysis powers wear off and Jemma is finally free to move, the first thing she does is close her eyes on the images that have been pouring uninterrupted into her head for the past hour. None of them are anything she hasn’t seen before - either in history classes or in her time as a SHIELD agent - but they turned her stomach all the same. Once she has a grip on her emotions, she sits up slowly, taking stock of her body as she goes.

“Jemma.” 

She flinches. She’d hoped moving slowly would allow her to avoid notice for a few seconds more. She supposes she hoped for too much from It.

The creature has abandoned the body it wore on Maveth; now it resides in what’s left of Grant Ward. Which, frankly, isn’t much. She caught glimpses of it while she was immobilized (she’ll have to shower for a  _year_  to wash away the feel of its icy fingers brushing her hair away from her face) but now that she can see it properly, she’d almost rather turn back to the screens depicting all the horrors the human race has perpetrated. 

There’s something almost insulting about it. Ward certainly wasn’t her friend, but in a way that body is hers. She repaired it, kept it alive when it would have died without care. And now a monster (another monster) is wearing it.

It smiles in a condescending sort of way she grew familiar with during her years at university. She hated it then and hates it even more now.

“I hope you were comfortable,” It says. It turns away from the men it was speaking to. The one Jemma recognizes as her torturer bows his head respectfully and steps back as if to make room for this new conversation. The other, a man Jemma’s sure she’s seen but can’t place, looks put out.

She stands rather than remain on the bed - which is not a medical bed, now that she gets a good look at it; she’s afraid to wonder to whom it belongs. “What do you want with me?” she asks.

Its smile grows and It makes a vague gesture towards the door. Jemma marks it as the telekinetic hurries out. There’s a hallway beyond. At least one guard. No telling which direction might lead to freedom but-

“You won’t be leaving.” 

She recoils, both from the voice and from the accompanying prick in her skull. “Don’t  _do_ that.”

It tips its head as its eyes shut in an expression she might be tempted to call blissful if it weren’t being worn by an emaciated corpse. “I have missed your mind. So many gears constantly turning.”

“Stay out of it.”

She knows this smile. It’s the one Ward wore in that tent before he left her to be torn apart. It’s the smile of someone who knows something she doesn’t.

“Why am I here?” she asks, side-stepping away from the bed. There are books, she sees now, arranged in messy piles on the floor. It’s been studying.

It lifts hollow eyes to the screens. She doesn’t follow its gaze. “This world needs saving. I have returned to free humanity from itself.”

That doesn’t sound ominous in the least.

It smiles. It heard that thought.

Good. It should know it sounds ridiculous.

“But in doing so, I will limit myself. And that will put humanity in danger of slipping back into its old ways. I cannot allow that to happen. Some will have to live with their present pain so that others may find peace.”

There’s a trite voice in Jemma’s head which sounds very much like Daisy and is amused by how self-important It obviously is. “What does that-” Have to do with her, she means to say, but the words die on her tongue as a figure steps into the doorway. An impossible, beautiful figure. “Will,” she breathes.

He’s wearing real clothes and has had a long-overdue shower and haircut, but she sees only the look of bitter heartbreak he wears as she shoots across the room and into his arms. She doesn’t care that she has to pass by It or that it’s plainly watching. She only cares about Will, his familiar arms around her, his voice telling her he’s here, he’s sorry, he’s  _so sorry_.

Fitz told her he was dead, killed by the creature. Coulson confirmed it. How-?

“A necessary fiction on my part,” It says. Will’s arms tighten around her. “I couldn’t have SHIELD stealing him away. It was difficult enough to recover you.”

Will eases her back to her feet, and she dares a brief look at his face. It’s fuller, like he’s eaten a real meal in the last year. His eyes are sad even while she can tell he’s happy to see her. He nods once. It’s telling the truth.

She has no idea what to make of that - of It or its interest in him or her - so she does what she wants regardless and buries her face in Will’s chest. He smells different - clean - but there’s still that scent that is purely Will Daniels beneath it all, the one she still dreams of. The want of it leaves her in tears most mornings, and it seems she’s no better off for having it.

Will’s hand smooths over her spine. So long as he touches her, she thinks she might be able to hold off sobbing in earnest.

His grip on her tightens again, and she knows It’s coming nearer.

“I am sorry I cannot grant either of you the peace I will bestow upon this world. But your sacrifice will be for the greater good. And you will have each other.” There’s a note of humor in Its voice that has Jemma clinging tighter to Will. “I think that might make it bearable.” Its hand touches her hair and she finds herself pulled roughly away, into Will’s side.

“Don’t you dare touch-” Will cuts off with a grunt of pain. He curls in on himself, and Jemma has to hold him to keep him upright.

“Stop it!” 

Will’s tension abruptly eases. He pants against her shoulder. 

“We are old friends, William.” It rests one of Ward’s dead hands on Will’s bent back. “You know better than to defy me.”

Jemma can feel Will’s jaw tense. His fingers curl around her waist.

It turns a smile to her. “You will want for nothing,” It promises. “And your gifts to this world will echo into eternity, being second only to my own.

“Now go,” It orders kindly. “Enjoy your reunion. I know how you have missed one another.”

Jemma wants to ask what gifts it’s talking about, what it plans on doing with the both of them, what could be so important that it would concoct an illusion of Will to make the others think he was dead, but Will’s hand slips into hers as he straightens. He gives her a squeeze and a look that plainly says  _be brave_.

She wants to ask, but Will is here and It’s right, she has missed him. She leans into his side as they follow the telekinetic out, soaking up his warmth and allowing her body to enjoy the way she fits against him. She also counts doorways and makes note of the location of the lift. 

Will’s survival changes nothing. She still wants what she always has: freedom, for the both of them, from It. She found a way once, she’ll do it again.

 


	27. care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> soulmates au

Not that Will’s saying he’s crazy, but he thinks he might be okay with it if he is. That hallucination down there, she’s not from Death. If she were, she’d have made him kill himself by now or gotten out of there to do it for him. 

So she’s just a run-of-the-mill, normal human-looking figment of his imagination. Who happens to be young and female and speak with a British accent and a smart mouth. 

All-in-all, not so bad. 

 _If_  he’s crazy. 

He could learn to live with it. 

Which is what he’s thinking when he hears her moaning in pain.

He’s racing down the tunnel before the sound fully registers in his brain. She’s on the ground, curled up on herself, saying how she couldn’t have hurt him, why’d he poison her. His heart leaps into his throat while his brain offers up a not so helpful litany of  _no no no no’s_. 

He cuts the cord holding the cage shut and rushes in, kneeling by her side while he mentally goes back over the work he did preparing the meal. He doesn’t remember adding anything different, anything he didn’t eat himself.

But he is the guy who was just thinking how he might be insane, so…

He eases her to her back with trembling hands, tries to look at her face to see how her coloring is. 

The metal bowl comes out of nowhere, sends him straight to the ground like a cadet on his first day of hand-to-hand. He sees stars. They cut in and out, there and gone and there again while she scrambles to her feet to run.

She sees them before she makes the tunnel.

“No,” she breathes, holding up her hand. She throws a look back at him and the tiny pricks of light from her arm reflect in her eyes.

He’s got the sense to pull the ragged collar of his uniform to the side while he sits up, giving her a look at the spots peppering his shoulder. They’re not like the exotic soul marks so many of his friends had growing up - weird shapes and almost symbols that were shown off like tattoos. His are more like freckles. His mama used to call them his stars, said one day he’d meet someone and they’d make them shine.

Dr. Jemma Simmons of Earth shakes her head at him while she stumbles back into the shadows. Her mark still glows, looking like a little bit of night sky bottled up and carried underground.

One of them’s gotta say something sooner or later and he figures, since he held her prisoner all this time, it might as well be him. “Guess you are real.”

She makes a sound that might, on some other planet, be a laugh. She searches the shadows - for answers, for reason, for some justice in all this - before fixing on him again. She shakes her head once. Then she’s off and running.

He might fall a little in love while he’s scrambling to his feet to chase her, but whatever he feels turns to fear when he sees she’s found the ladder to the surface.

 


	28. light in the darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of s1 Jemma/Will (without any Will, sadly)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a first sentence prompt from safelycapricious

There’s a pounding in her head that means either dehydration or she’s been knocked out. And not by dendrotoxin this time. A pitiful moan escapes her as she tries to open her eyes. There’s not much light, but it’s still far too much.

“Hey there. You’re okay.” She doesn’t recognize the voice, but the hand that helps her lift her head (it feels like it’s full of bricks) is gentle. “Here,” the man says and the rim of a cup is pressed to her lips. 

She manages two sips, not nearly enough, before the cup is removed. She moans again.

“Sorry. I don’t want you hurting yourself, Jemma.”

For some reason that snaps things into focus. It shouldn’t, when this man has never, to her knowledge, said her name before, but it does the trick. She forces her eyes open and there, in the dim light, sits Marcus Daniels.

She tries to move, but discovers her wrists and ankles secured to the chair she’s sitting in. She looks around, well aware her breathing is growing frantic, for any sign of the others or any sort of help at all. There’s none. 

For a few seconds, she thinks they’re still at the theater, but then she sees the dust in the air and the box seats and the rotting wood. They’re in  _a_  theater, but it’s not the one she and the others set their trap in.

“It’s okay,” Marcus says. It’s not a reassurance, more of a reminder, like he thinks she should know better than to want to escape him.

“Where are we?” she asks, twisting her wrists in hopes of freeing herself. All she gains are some uncomfortable rope burns. “Where are the others? Where’s Audrey?”

At mention of his soulmate, Marcus stands and turns his back on Jemma. “They’re not here,” he says, dropping into the orchestra pit. “They tried to follow us, but Audrey was hurt-”

The sunlight (she’s been out for  _hours_ ) breaking through holes in the roof is uneven, but there’s enough of it she can see the way Marcus’ face contorts.

“That- that  _Agent Coulson_  did it. He got in the way. He always does.”

While Jemma heartily disagrees with that assessment, she doesn’t dare say so. Antagonizing the escaped maniac seems like a very poor game plan.

But what  _is_  the game plan? SHIELD protocol states that kidnapped agents are to first and foremost protect the public and the secrets they have sworn to safeguard, but somehow Jemma doubts Marcus’ plans for her involve her mind. More likely than not, he’s taken her as a sort of consolation prize, perhaps a means of drawing Coulson out so that they can face one another again. She can’t allow Coulson to put himself in that kind of danger for her sake. The team needs him to hold them together while they try to find their feet.

She needs to find her own way out of this.

“You must love her very much,” she says.

That surprises him. He pulls his attention from whatever it is he’s fiddling with down there in the pit to stare at her.

“You said she was your light in the darkness, didn’t you?” she asks.

He nods slowly.

She gives him a smile. “I thought that was terribly romantic.” He smiles back and she plunges onward, hoping to endear herself to him well enough he won’t do something rash like murder her. “I haven’t met my soulmate yet, but I always thought it would be like that, the one person who makes even your darkest days brighter, the sun that makes clear days so beautiful…” She trails off as he begins climbing out of the pit.

That’s when she begins to worry she’s made an error. Perhaps making nice with a man with an obsessive personality isn’t the best idea, he’s likely to take her turning on him later rather poorly.

His feet shuffle on the floorboards as he nears, almost like a nervous child. He’s clutching a worn book between his hands and, when he sits, he lays it open in her lap, revealing it to be a notebook - physics, if she guesses correctly. The words are tightly packed, as though the writer feared running out of room, but the letters are clear and crisp, the diagrams similarly precise.

“This is old,” he says, turning the yellowed pages, “from when we were kids, but I thought…”

She shakes her head, not understanding what she’s meant to be seeing. “I- I don’t-”

Marcus’ expression, when it falls on her, is inscrutable. She gets the idea she’s disappointed him somehow. His Adam’s apple bobs and his breath hisses. “Your soul mark,” he says, “it’s here.” His hand presses to his side, over his ribs. “Isn’t it?”

He could have looked, she tells herself. She has no idea how long she was out and he could have done anything to her during that time. Besides, the abdomen is the most common soul mark location, he could easily be guessing.

That doesn’t stop her eyes from drifting down to the page, hunting for certain letters.

“They said your name, back at the theater,” he says, “and I thought-”

“Whose is this?” she asks. 

He keeps on staring, like her whole world isn’t going sideways on her.

“You said ‘we,’” she says, perhaps more sharply than is wise given the circumstances, “that implies this belongs to someone else, someone you knew, so who-”

“My brother. Will.”

The breath flies out of her lungs, she feels lightheaded. Will Daniels. The name she’s been carrying her whole life, waiting to find.

“But that’s not possible,” she says. SHIELD looks into these things in order to avoid agents’ soulmates being used against them. She might be able to chalk some secrets up to HYDRA’s influence, but Coulson  _knows_  Daniels, there was even talk about her soulmate sharing his last name on the flight down, surely he would have said something if Marcus’ brother had her name.

The weight of the notebook slips off her lap. Marcus trades it for his hand on hers. “He’s missing. The mission was only supposed to last a year but something went wrong. SHIELD covered it up. They tried to tell me it was an accident, that he died, but he can’t have, not before he meets you.”

That’s not entirely accurate. There’s no proof soulmates always meet before they die, though she knows it’s a belief many people cling to, the sort of delusion Jemma tends to throw in with astrology and chem trails. 

“Marcus,” she says gently, intending to follow it up with a carefully worded speech which will hopefully ease the pain he’s been carrying around all this time. Only the words won’t come. 

It’s been five days since HYDRA came out of the shadows. Five days since Jemma’s entire world fell apart. And she finds, in the wake of that, she can’t dash Marcus’ hopes, not when it means dashing her own as well.

He’s still talking. Apologizing, she realizes. His powers, it seems, are a result of his own attempts at finding a way to reach his brother and he’s sorry to have failed. He quiets as she meets his eyes.

“Tell me everything you know about the mission,” she says.

 


	29. happy accidents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiding in a cave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: touch on the chest from jemmaqueenofspace

“All right,” Will says as the wind dies down, “I think It’s moving on.”  

“Okay,” Jemma says. They’re so tight in here, squeezed into a crack in the mountainside - something It probably made throwing another temper tantrum just like this one - that he can feel her breath fluttering against his neck. 

His heart’s pounding in his ears. The instincts that have kept him alive all these years are screaming at him to stay put. “We’ll give It a few more minutes. Make sure It’s really gone.”

“Okay.” There’s a tremor in her voice. A few creative and anatomically impossible curses run through his head; all the shit It’s done to him since taking his team, he thinks he hates It most for what It’s done to her. 

He moves a little closer to her and at the same time drops a hand to his thigh to finger his pistol. The wind’s died down but the sand’s still moving against the rocks, not a good sign. He wants to be ready in case It’s just lulling them into complacency.

Jemma’s chest jumps and a strangled noise escapes her before she can snap her jaw shut. 

He gives up scanning the small bit of the outside world he can see to look at her. “Are you hurt?”

Her eyes are screwed shut and she’s biting her lip, holding back more of whatever that sound was.

“Jemma,” he presses.

“Will,” she says, mouth curving into a smile. It’s so not the response he was expecting that he’s stunned into silence until she pointedly drops her eyes. He looks down … and discovers his hand is cupping her breast. Has been for a while too from the feel of it.

He snatches his hand away, but with so little room, he can’t put any real distance between them.

Jemma laughs. It’s his favorite sound on any planet and even the embarrassment burning through him can’t ruin it.

Her arms wrap around his neck and she pulls him closer. “If we’re going to be stuck here a while, we might as well make the most of it.”

Well, if she doesn’t seem to mind… He wraps an arm around her back to grab her ass. “Sounds like a plan.”

 


	30. 4x16 AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma's been kidnapped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: What If... AU from safelycapricious

The madman paces. He’s taking a phone call—very rude, considering—and it isn’t going well if she’s any judge. Whoever’s on the other end of that line is  _very_ unhappy with his behavior. That makes two of them.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll see you soon,” he says. He stares at the phone in a way that makes her think whoever was on the other end of the line hung up on him. “Okay,” he says slowly, “this looks bad.”

Jemma scoffs. “It’s a fair sight worse than  _bad_. You’ve kidnapped one of Hydra’s top researchers. I am a  _personal friend_  of Madame Hydra herself. You’ll be lucky if you’re killed during the impending rescue operation because if I get you into my lab you will live a long, miserable time.”

Absurdly, her threats leave him smiling. But then he is a madman, so it’s to be expected that his reaction would have no bearing at all on reality.

He grabs the remaining chair from the breakfast nook—she’s currently tied to the other—and takes a seat facing her. “I get that you’re mad-”

Again, she scoffs. She’s far worse than mad, she’s  _livid_.

“-but we’re gonna laugh about this later.” He rolls his eyes up towards the ceiling, considering. “Okay, a lot later.”

She tosses her head, throwing her hair back and straightening her shoulders. “What do you want with me?” The first order of business is to keep him busy until rescue can arrive. And she might as well figure out what this is all about while she’s at it.

He smiles in a self-deprecating sort of way. It’s oddly charming.

(She fists her hands so tightly her nails dig into her palms.  _What_  is she thinking? Her kidnapper is not  _charming_. Leopold’s right, she really does need to get out more if she’s looking at this man with anything approaching interest.)

“Believe it or not,” he says, “I’m here to rescue you.”

The absurdity of the statement leaves her gobsmacked, so much so that when footsteps sound in the adjoining room, she doesn’t think to yell for help until Agent Skye appears in the doorway.

“Thank goodness,” Jemma breathes. Personally, she’d rather have Agent Ward if it was to be one of them, but Skye is perfectly capable of dispatching one unhinged civilian.

“I told you to wait,” Skye says, not to Jemma, but to the madman sitting across from her. “We need to get our bearings before we do anything like-” she gestures to Jemma, tied to the chair- “ _this_!”

Jemma can feel the blood drain from her face, along with all her hopes of rescue. “No,” she breathes, but it goes unnoticed.

“And I told you,” the madman says, suddenly stone-faced, “she didn’t abandon me. I won’t leave her.”

Skye groans loudly. “God, why are you two so adorably codependent? Fine. But if she doesn’t believe us, you’re the one who has to guard her. And I mean  _all the time_.”

The madman chuckles. “Stare at Jemma all day; I don’t think you understand quite what it was like on Maveth.”

“What!” Jemma bursts out. She’s gotten her bearings and is tired of being talked around. She deserves at least some explanation for why she’s been kidnapped and why one of Hydra’s specialists is taking part in it.

Skye leans against her kitchen island, arms crossed. She gives the madman a  _have at it_  sort of look. He obligingly shifts in his chair, back to facing Jemma. For a moment it seems he’s going to reach out to her, but he must think better of it because he only clasps his hands between his knees.

“My name is Will Daniels,” he says. “And I’m your husband.”

Jemma was right. He is an  _absolute nutter_.

 


End file.
